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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 



Divine Balustrades 



AND OTHER SERMONS 




ROBERT S. Mac ARTHUR. D.D. 



hint* 

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 

NEW YORK CHICAGO 

30 Union Square, East 148-150 Madison Street 

Publishers of Evangelical Literature 



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Copyright, 1892, 
—BY- 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY. 



OF COKGRE** I 

W ASHl^GTON_ 



PREFACE. 

It will be noticed that some of the sermons in this 
volume are textual, some are topical, and some com- 
bine both these methods ; while others are expository, 
others what are generally known as Bible readings, 
and still others were propared in the atmosphere of 
recent biblical criticism. They are sent forth with 
the hope and prayer that .they may contribute some- 
thing to the honor of the Word of God, to the salva- 
tion of men, and to the glory of Jesus Christ. 

Robert S. Mac Arthur. 

Calvary Baptist Study, 
New York City. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I.— Divine Balustrades, 9 

Part I. Deut, xxii. 8. 

II.— Divine Balustrades, 23 

Part II. Deut. xxii. 8. 

III.— Knowing and Trusting God, . . . .34 

Psalm ix. 10. 

IV.— God's Answer by Fire, 50 

1 Kings xviii. 22-40. 

V.— Obedience and Love, 66 

John xiv. 15. 

VI.— The Blble and Criticism, 79 

1 Thess. v. 21. 

VII.— The "With Christs," .96 

Gal. ii. 20; Rev. xx. 4. 

VIII. —Doing All to the Glory of God, . . .109 

1 Cor. \. 31. 

IX.— Marital Piety, 120 

Luke i. 6. 

X.— Four Great Things, 134 

Judges ii. 1-5. 



8 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

XI.— The Old Testament Unfolded in the New, . 151 

Luke xxi v. 27. 

XII.— No More Sea, 169 

Rev. xxi. 1. 

XIII. — The Christian's Certain Comfort, .- . . 180 

Eccles. viii. 12. 

XIV. — Seeking and Beceiving, 191 

Matt. vi. 33. 

XV. — Anticipatory Blessings, 203 

Psalm xxi. 3. 

XVI.— Watching Him There, . . . . .216 

Matt, xxvii. 36. 

XVII.— The Dead and the Living Christ, . . 234 

Rev. i. 18. 

XVIII.— Intercessory Prayer and Beatific Vision, . 250 

Jchn xvii. 24. 



Divine Balustrades- 

(part I.) 

" When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a 
battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine 
house if any man fall from thence." — Deut. xxii. 8. 

YOU will observe that in this immediate connec- 
tion we have a series of laws taking cognizance 
of many details of daily life. Cattle that had strayed 
were to be brought back ; lost goods to be restored ; 
fallen cattle to be helped ; the distinction between the 
sexes, as indicated by their apparel, to be maintained ; 
and in taking a bird's nest the mother-bird was to 
have her liberty. Our Saviour probably had this 
law in mind when he made his tender and beautiful 
allusion to God's notice of the sparrow's fall. God 
thus commends the spirit of kindness and mercy 
toward all his creatures. The man who is guilty 
of cruelty toward a sparrow would in favorable 



10 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

circumstances show a like cruelty to his brother 
men. 

Then comes instruction in regard to the roofs of 
houses ; care must be taken to make them safe. We 
are familiar with the fact that houses in the East 
were built with flat roofs. To a considerable degree 
the family lived on the roof ; there they walked to 
enjoy the fresh air ; there they met for social con- 
verse ; there they often slept ; there, too, they went 
at certain times for meditation and prayer. So it 
was of the utmost importance that roofs be pro- 
tected, and we learn from this law that they were to 
be surrounded with a battlement or balustrade to 
make them safe. If it were not built and any one 
fell off, the owner by his neglect brought blood upon 
his house. If it were built, and one through his own 
carelessness fell, his blood must be on his own head, 
and the owner would be free from all blame. The 
spirit of this law, we are told, was extended to wells, 
bridges, and indeed to everything which might endan- 
ger life. Life is thus seen to be precious in God's 
sight. 

We are all builders ; and it is of the greatest mo- 
ment that we build aright. Care must be taken with 
the foundation ; a defect in its lowest stone may re- 
veal itself in a crack in the highest tower. Care 
must be taken with the material and manner of the 
structure ; the apostle reminds us that every man 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 11 

must take heed how he builds even on the sure foun- 
dation. When the house is roofed, the roof itself is 
to be made safe. Builders of character, builders of 
families, builders of society, I urge you to put balus- 
trades on the roof of the structures you are erect- 
ing. You ought to live much on the roof ; it will 
give you broad and heavenward views. There God's 
breezes will refresh you; there God's sunlight will 
kiss you. The roof may be the most attractive, and 
it may also be the most dangerous place. Guard it 
well. There are four balustrades to which I wish 
especially to call your attention, one for each side of 
your house. 

The Sabbath Balustrade. 

1 . Throw around it the balustrade of the Chris- 
tian Sabbath. I use this combination of the words 
designedly. A reference to the meaning of the word 
Sabbath, and its relation to our dispensation, will jus- 
tify this use of the terms. 

This balustrade is a very old one. Kingdoms have 
risen and fallen ; empires have bloomed and withered ; 
republics "have danced into light, and died into the 
shade," but the Sabbath has remained. Before the 
days of Rome and Athens, before Babylon and Mne- 
veh, before the royal tombs of Thebes and the mighty 
pyramids of Egypt, the Sabbath was. And after the 
gnawing tooth of time shall have crumbled them to 



12 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

dust, the Sabbath shall be. In the very dawn of 
time's morning this balustrade was erected by the 
mighty and gentle hand of God. Two institutions 
of to-day have come down to us beautiful with the 
innocence and radiant with the glory of Eden — the 
Sabbath and marriage. They withstood the Fall and 
all its sad consequences ; they have outlived all the 
upheavals of society, and all the cataclysms of time. 
They are absolutely essential to the highest good of 
the race ; on the Sabbath stands the glorious structure 
of the religious life, and on marriage the security 
and happiness of social life. Any theory of social 
life which lifts a rude and unholy hand against the 
sanctity and glory of marriage is to be received with 
the utmost detestation. You can usually judge the 
spirit and tendencies of any social theory by its atti- 
tude toward the marriage relation. This is often one 
of the best tests to be applied ; it is of tenest at this 
point that some of the modern social theories reveal 
their wicked animus. Not less true is it of any sys- 
tem of opposition to the Sabbath. The man who 
strikes at either, strikes at much that is holiest in 
the best men and women, and also at much that is 
dearest to God. Palsied be the hand that would tear 
down this old balustrade — the Sabbath of God ! 

This is a balustrade which has received in mar- 
vellous ways the sanction of God. Its observance is 
enforced in the general Mosaic code, and afterward 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 13 

with all the solemnities of the decalogue. We find 
the first reference to the Sabbath in the second chap- 
ter of Genesis, in connection with the close of the 
record of creation. In some respect the reference is 
the more impressive because the Sabbath is not there 
mentioned by name. On that day God rested ; he 
took pleasure in the work of his hand ; that day he 
blessed, sanctified and consecrated. Are not they 
right who hold that its institution is as ancient, and 
its obligation as universal, as the race? When we 
go to the sixteenth chapter of Exodus we find that 
the observance of the Sabbath is one of the recognized 
institutions of the time ; on that day no manna fell. 
There is nothing in this connection to intimate that 
the Sabbath was now first given; it is uniformly 
spoken of as something well known. Thus there 
was a recognition of the Sabbath not only before the 
giving of the law on Mount Sinai, but also, it seems, 
before Israel came out of Egypt. If this were the 
first mention of the day, how could Moses have un- 
derstood God, and how could the people so readily 
have understood Moses? Already the keeping of the 
Sabbath was the "good old way." Soon after this 
it was re-enacted, written by the finger of God as 
the fourth commandment on the tables of stone, 
amid all the solemnities of the giving of the law. 
The injunction in the fourth commandment, "Re- 
member the Sabbath day," indicates its previous ob- 



14 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

servance. There are several other hints as to its pre- 
Mosaic origin ; but, of course, I cannot this morning 
go at length into the discussion. It is sufficient to 
remember that the fourth commandment formed a 
part of the decalogue, and that the decalogue had an 
authority peculiarly its own; that the New Testa- 
ment does not repeal it ; and that it was not for Jews 
alone, but is needful to and is binding on all men 
in all ages and climes. As Dr. Adam Clarke has 
said, " Thus we find, that when God finished his 
creation, he instituted the Sabbath ; that when he 
brought the people out of Egypt he insisted on the 
strict observance of it; and that when he gave 
the law he made it a tenth part of the whole ; such 
importance has this institution in the eyes of the Su- 
preme Being!" As time progressed, the Sabbath 
was held by the devout not in less, but in greater, 
reverence. Isaiah utters his solemn protest against 
profaning it ; and he also pronounces many blessings 
on the proper observance of the day. Thus he 
speaks, 58th chap., 13th and 14th verses: "If thou 
turn away . thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing 
thy pleasure on my holy day ; and call the Sabbath a 
delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt 
honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding 
thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words ; 
then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord ; and I 
will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 15 

earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob, thy 
father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 
These are fitting words for to-day. The Sabbath- 
breakers of to-day ought to hear and heed them. 
Their special form of Sabbath-breaking is in turning 
their feet away from God's house, doing their own 
ways, speaking their own words and finding their 
own pleasure. God will not hold them guiltless who 
profane his holy day. Ezekiel also makes the pro- 
fanation of the day foremost among the sins of the 
Jews during their time of declension. Their re- 
turn to God's favor, and the revival of national pros- 
perity, were always marked by a regard for the 
Sabbath. Has the fourth commandment been abro- 
gated? If so, by whom? If so, where? Christ 
came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it. True, 
in fulfilling it he defined it ; but he made it the more 
binding. Who dare blot out^ the command which 
the finger of God has written in the imperishable 
stone! The old promise is still true — the nations 
which observe the Sabbath shall ride upon the high 
places of the earth. England and America, as na- 
tions, are Sabbath-keepers. England and America 
side by side march up the heights of national great- 
ness. In the noblest elements of the highest civiliza- 
tion they lead the world. " Woe worth the day," if it 
shall ever come, when the Sabbath-breaking element 
in these nations shall triumph! Then their glory 



16 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

will be departed indeed, and the banner of their 
splendor will be trailed in the dust ; but in the strength 
of our God we believe that day will never dawn. 

The Sabbath with its respite from labor is an un- 
speakable boon to men. The law of God in the hu- 
man body is in harmony with the law of God in the 
divine book. It has been abundantly proved by 
many actual tests, that man and beast will accom- 
plish more in a year by working six days than seven. 
Mindful of this, some heathen nations set apart a 
seventh part of the time, and even called it a holy 
day. I look with sorrow on the tendencies to secu- 
larize the day amongst us. All of us are more care- 
less than once we were in regard to this balustrade ; 
we permit and do things which once would have 
shocked us. It may be true, as things now are, that 
more Sunday work is done on the Monday than on 
the Sunday paper ; birt if there were no Sunday paper 
the Sunday work on the Monday paper would not be 
necessary. But that is not the only point : the read- 
ing of the paper on that day secularizes the day. It 
considerably defeats the divine thought of the day. 
Sabbath-day means rest-day, pause-day, cease-day. 
God lifts up his voice and says, Stop! Kest! Busi- 
ness men, you need rest, and you ought to obey 
God. Your mind should have a chance to get out 
of the ruts. Let the market quotations alone. To- 
day dismiss the world. Remember that you belong 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 17 

to another country, even an heavenly. You are can- 
didates for eternity. A newsman has often told me 
that he cannot attend church, because he has to sup- 
ply so many church-members with Sunday papers. 
Instead of being lifted by the day, you drag it down 
to j'our level. Body, mind and soul cry out for the 
Sabbath. Workingmen have rights; they are cry- 
ing for rest. Be not deaf to these manifold voices. 
If you must walk on Sunday with your children, 
take them into the Sunday-school and come yourself 
into the Bible classes. I would have Sunday for you 
and your children " the happiest time of all the glad 
New Year." 

Happy is that land and blessed is that family where 
the Sabbath is kept holy, and where God is loved and 
served ! A week without Sunday is like a country 
without the fragrance of flowers or the music of 
birds. It is like a year without summer, nothing 
but bleak, barren, frozen winter. It is like a night 
without a morning, nothing but sorrow, darkness, 
death. Sunday is God's benediction on a troubled 
world. He speaks his "Peace" and the voice of 
trade and strife ceases, and God's hush alone is 
heard, while every heart is uplifted in holy song, or 
bowed in humble prayer. Such is God's idea of 
Sunday : such should be ours. Has this balustrade at 
any point been broken? Repair the breach ; keep the 
balustrade intact. Then shall America ride upon the 



18 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

high places of the earth, for the mouth of the Lord 
hath spoken it. 

The Balustrade of Family Prayer. 

II. On the roof erect also the balustrade of 
Family Prayer. God hath set the solitary in fami- 
lies. He has instituted the family relation ; and the 
relation carries with it the duty of instruction and 
worship. This is the oldest institution, and family 
worship is of ancient and divine origin. Behold the 
family altar builded by Noah ! Remember that when 
Abraham built a tent for himself he built an altar for 
his God. "We never read that Lot built an altar; 
no wonder that he looks toward Sodom, and then is 
soon found in Sodom. When Isaac and his servants 
pitch their tent and dig a well, they build their 
altar. Listen to the grand resolution of Joshua, " As 
for me and my house, we will serve the Lord !" Oh 
for more Joshuas and Hannahs as heads of families ! 
The New Testament and the early history of the 
Church contain many similar examples. I cannot in 
this connection go at length into the duty and the ad- 
vantages of family prayer and religion ; but many of 
these advantages suggest themselves at once to you. 
You have observed that family life is often the best 
test of genuine piety. Bunyan's Christian makes 
Talkative a saint abroad and a devil at home; he 
tells us that Talkative 's " house is as empty of religion 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 19 

as the white of an egg is of savor." It is on record 
that when Mr. Whitefield was asked whether some 
one was a Christian, his reply was, " How can I tell? 
I have never lived with him. " It is to be feared 
that in the rush and bustle of our modern life the 
old-fashioned methods of family instruction and 
pra} r er, when all the family and servants were called 
together, are now much neglected. The Jewish law 
made the father a prophet and priest in his own 
f amily ; at the paschal feast he slew the lamb, and 
he sprinkled the blood on the lintels of the door ; he 
also taught the statutes of the Lord to his children 
and servants. Philip Henry, in his family circle 
expounding to them the Word of God, reminds us of 
one of these grand men of the olden time ; it was in 
this atmosphere that Matthew Henry grew up to be 
the best expositor of the mind of the Spirit which the 
Church has yet produced. The notes taken of his 
father's expositions at family prayers were the 
foundation of his wonderful " Commentary." Much 
to be pitied is that home where the voice of prayer is 
never heard. It is a roof without a balustrade, ex- 
posed to danger and death; it is a house without 
a roof, into which the storms of temptation fall, 
and on which the sun of trial will beat with scorch- 
ing ray. John Randolph said that men charged him 
with being a French infidel ; he denied the charge, 
but confessed that he would have been one if he had 



20 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

not been taught to bow at his mother's knee and 
say, "Our Father." Every day should begin with 
prayer. Let us talk to God before we talk much to 
men ; let us begin every duty, and decide every ques- 
tion with prayer. It is said that Pericles, the great 
Athenian statesman, would not address an audience 
until he had prayed to the gods, and that Scipio, the 
Roman general, would not undertake any affair of 
importance until he had passed some time alone in 
the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. The examples of 
Paul and Christ are still more in point. Remember 
how earnestly Jesus prayed before entering on his 
great undertakings! Read the gospels with that 
thought in mind. Where else do you find such an 
example of prolonged, fervent and trusting prayer? 
Remember Paul's requests for prayer ; remember also 
his own references to his habit of prayer. Do you 
say you have no time? Excuse me, you have. What 
is time for, but to serve God here and to enjoy him 
hereafter? David found time amid his manifold 
cares and great responsibilities to pray three times a 
day ; Daniel found time when he was prime minister 
in Babylon to pray three times a day ; Luther used 
to say, when his gigantic toils pressed upon him, 
that he could not get on with less than three hours 
of prayer; General Havelock rose, it is said, at 
four, when the hour of marching was six, rather 
than lose the period of prayer and communion with 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 21 

God. No time ! Do not say that. You know you 
have. 

Do you say you cannot pray? Stop a little; you 
can. What is prayer? Eloquence is not needed; 
the publican's prayer sent him down to his house 
justified. It is the pastor's duty to press home this 
neglected privilege. I have read that when Richard 
Baxter went to Kidderminster, there were whole 
streets in which there were only two or three pray- 
ing families; and that, when he left, there were 
whole streets in which there were only two or three 
families that were not praying families. His in- 
fluence pervaded the town ; he canvassed its houses ; 
family altars were built, and the voice of prayer 
and praise girdled the town and went up acceptably 
into the ear of God. 

Make the hour of family worship the most joyous 
of the day. Regard it not so much a duty as a 
privilege. Husbands and fathers, let nothing rob 
you of the privilege and glory of being the high- 
priests in your own families. The children will 
never forget this hour, even if they are scattered to 
the ends of the earth. When the great Dr. Nott lay 
dying they bent over him to catch his whispers, and 
they heard him murmur, " Now I lay me down to 
sleep." The only thing we can never forget is what 
is learned in childhood. When you are building the 
soul-houses of your children, put ai'ound them the 



22 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

balustrade of prayer. Is there a family represented 
here in whose home the family altar has been torn 
down? Go home and rebuild it. Is there one in 
which it never has been erected? Go home to es- 
tablish it, I beseech you. Ask a blessing at your 
table; gather your children about you, and around 
them and yourselves throw the balustrade of family 
prayer. To-day think of these two blessed balus- 
trades — the Holy Sabbath and Family Prayer, and 
may God help us to erect and maintain both ! 



II. 

2>h>ine Balustrabes* 

(PART II.) 

" When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a 
battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine 
house, if any man fall from thence.' 1 '' — Deut. xxii. 8. 

LAST Sunday while discussing this text attention 
was called to the two important balustrades — 
Observance of the Sabbath, and the Practice of 
Family Prayer. There are still other balustrades to 
be placed upon frhe roof of our soul-house and family 
home. We are exposed to danger from many quar- 
ters; we ought to fortify our roof at every point. 
Our roof is to be a place both of defensive and offen- 
sive warfare. The inspired writer tells us to be 
watchful against our besetting sin; but it is often 
equally necessary to be on our guard concerning sins 
that are not besetting, as we suppose. We flatter 
ourselves that we are safe as to them, and the enemy 
takes advantage of our indifference to danger and 

our neglect to provide the munitions for defence. 

23 



24 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

There are, therefore, other balustrades to be erected 
and to be kept constantly in position. 

Eeverence for the Bible. 

III. Permit me to mention as one of these — Rever- 
ence for jbhe Bible. This is a day of the making and 
reading of many books. Every age produces its 
supply. Solomon said three thousand years ago, 
" Of making many books there is no end ;" were he 
living now he would write that sentence in great 
capitals. But the majority of books die with the age 
which gives them birth. Many of these books ought 
to die ; they are bad and that continually. But others 
are like " the tree of life, which bare twelve manner 
of fruits and yielded her fruit every month, and the 
leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." 
A good book is a wonderful product of brain and 
heart. Milton uttered a great truth when he said ; 
" Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain 
a progeny of life in them to be as active as that soul 
was whose progeny they are ; nay, they do preserve 
as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that 
living intellect that bred them. A good book is the 
precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and 
treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life." These 
words are especially applicable to the Bible, which by 
pre-eminence is called " The Book. " No book that 
has ever been written has exercised so vast an in- 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 25 

fluence, and has so stimulated to noble achievements 
as the Book of God. Some men think it is smart to 
speak sneeringly of the Bible. Such men are taking 
quite unnecessary pains to advertise their own ignor- 
ance. They are usually those who have never read 
the Bible, nor, for that matter, much of any other 
good literature. They have picked up at second- 
hand some objections to the Bible — objections which 
were exploded hundreds of years before these men 
were born — and parade them as if they had made a 
great discovery. Men of learning and thought know 
better, even though they may not themselves be 
Christians. To the Bible we owe what is noblest in 
literature, most enduring in art and sweetest in song. 
Not to speak just now of its higher merits, I claim 
for it the first place because of its literary worth. As 
history the Bible should be studied ; it is the oldest 
history, and it records the oldest events. It illus- 
trates the best elements of historical writing; and 
every page gives proof that its writers wrote in the 
conscious presence of the living God. Its biographies 
are matchless ; this difficult species of writing is here 
seen to perfection. Truth dominates every part; in- 
firmities and excellences are faithfully portrayed: 
this fact is an evidence of its inspiration; uninspired 
writers would have denied or concealed the sins, 
and would have magnified or created the virtues of 
their heroes. Its influence on language is wonder- 



26 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

f ul ; it has fixed the form of many languages ; and it 
ennobles and exalts every language into which it is 
translated. Think of its influence on music, paint- 
ing and sculpture. Without the Bible Milton's poetic 
genius had never so loftily soared and sung. He 
had to go to the Bible for his high theme, and the 
music of "Siloa's brook that flowed fast by the 
oracle of God" gives its charm to his lofty verse. The 
Bible gave Kaphael his inspiration. He ascended 
" the holy mount " and gazed on the transfigured 
Christ, else the world had never seen his immortal 
"Transfiguration." A passage from the Bible gave 
Handel his text for a great oratorio as he was about 
to leave England for Ireland. On that scripture he 
composed his immortal work, known at the first as 
the "Sacred Oratorio," and now as the "Messiah." 
But for the Bible Spenser's "Faerie Queene," Pope's 
"Messiah," Cowper's "Task," Wordsworth's "Ode 
on Immortality," and Bryant's " Thanatopsis " had 
never been written. Rapt prophets and inspired 
apostles gave these writers their themes, thoughts, 
and poetic fervor. Let the names of Michael An- 
gelo, Haydn, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Tasso, and a 
score more, suggest further to you how to them all, 
and to others working along the different lines of 
their own inherent genius, the Bible furnished 
themes and inspiration. 

Think of its poetry. True, it has no great epic 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 27 

poems; but it has dramatic elements in several 
books, although perhaps no great drama. But of 
didactic poetry it has noble specimens ; its pastoral 
poetry is unsurpassed; and its lyrics, inspired by 
God, lift the heart up to him. Milton declares that 
the Greek and Roman classics are unworthy to be 
compared with Zion's songs. Sir Daniel Sandford, 
a critic of marked ability, as quoted by William 
Walters in his " Claims of the Bible," says that, " In 
lyric flow and fire, in crushing force, in majesty that 
seems still to echo the awful sounds once heard be- 
neath the thunder- clouds of Mount Sinai, the poetry 
of the ancient Scriptures is the most superb that ever 
burned within the breast of man." Carlyle, in 
speaking of the book of Job, says, that apart from 
all theories about it, it is one of the grandest things 
ever written with pen: "Sublime sorrow, sublime 
reconciliation ; oldest choral melody as of the heart of 
mankind ; so soft and great as the summer midnight, 
as the world with its seas and stars ! There is noth- 
ing written, I think, in the Bible, or out of it, of 
equal literary merit." Its influence on legislation 
is great. Egypt and Phoenicia borrowed from its 
light ; so indirectly did Greece ; Rome borrowed from 
Greece, and the laws of Rome have exercised a 
great influence on the codes of Europe and America. 
A distinguished French jurist, himself an atheist, in 
comparing the laws of Moses with those of other 



28 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

great lawgivers says: "Lycurgus wrote, not for 
the people, but for an army ; it was a barrack he 
erected, not a commonwealth ; and sacrificing every- 
thing to the military spirit, he mutilated human nat- 
ure to crush it into armor. Solon could not resist 
the effeminate and relaxing influence of Athens. In 
Moses alone do we find a morality distinct from 
policy, and for all times and peoples. The trumpet of 
Sinai still finds an echo in the conscience of mankind — 
the decalogue still binds us all." Disraeli says in his 
"Tancred," "The life and prosperity of England are 
protected by the laws of Sinai. The hard-working 
people of England are secured a day of rest in every 
week by the laws of Sinai." Friends, it was a 
matchless code, and it was given with indescribable 
majesty. 

" The terrors of that awful day, though past, 
Have on the tide of time some glory, cast. " 

Could we trace the secret sources of the greatness 
of all the heathen nations, it would be seen that their 
only valuable lights, in all departments of human 
genius, were kindled on God's altars: and that their 
loftiest strains of poetry were but echoes of Hebrew 
song. Blessed Bible! It is the flower of all the 
world's books; it is the softest pillow for the aching 
head ; it is the best balm for the broken heart ; it 
brings heaven down to earth; it lifts earth up to 
heaven. Hear Disraeli again : " In times of sorrow 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 29 

we fly not to Byron, Wordsworth or Shakespeare, 
but to David. The most popular poet in England is 
the sweet singer of Israel, and by no other race except 
his own have his odes been so often sung. It was 
the sword of the Lord and of Gideon that won for 
England her boasted liberties; and the Scotch 
achieved their religious freedom chanting upon their 
hillsides the same canticles which cheered the hearts 
of Judah amid their glens." 

But let us remember that the Bible is not an amu- 
let, not a charm. It must be read, studied, incorpo- 
rated into our souls. It is the sword of the Spirit ; 
we must have the keen eye and the supple wrist to 
use it well. Let us hide the truth in our hearts, that 
we sin not against God. Let us plant every spot of 
the soul with the good seed of the kingdom, and there 
will be no room for the plants of error to grow. Let 
us fill the heart with the wheat of God's Word, and 
the world's chaff cannot enter. The best way to 
preach down error is to preach up truth. So also 
let us train our children. Never speak slightingly or 
jokingly of the Bible ! Do not talk too much about 
the original, and about different manuscripts. Let 
the sweetest memories of childhood gather about the 
family altar and the old family Bible; and those 
memories will be balustrades to many a soul strug- 
gling with the world's fierce trials. Around your 
house and heart let this battlement stand. God has 



30 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

spoken ; we have his very words. They are life and 
power; they came from God; they lead to God. 
Throw around the boys and girls the instructions of 
him who spake as never man spake. Then if our 
children scramble up and fall — as perhaps they will, 
for children have gone from family altar and Bible to 
perdition — their blood will be upon their own heads. 
God save us and our children ! As we fold them to 
our hearts, do thou, O God, folds us and them to thy 
hearts ! 

Personal Faith in Christ. 

IV. In the last place, erect this balustrade also, 
Faith in Christ as a personal Saviour. This unites 
all the others and completes the balustrade about the 
house. If we have this faith in our hearts we shall 
regard the Sabbath, observe family prayer, and re- 
spect the Bible. The three former battlements fit in 
and blend with this one. We began with the flower 
and fruit of the religious life, and we come back to its 
root of personal faith in the Lord Jesus. You know 
that, at least in mediaeval architecture a battlement 
was " a wall, or parapet, on the top of a building, with 
embrasures, or open places, originally designed for 
military purposes, the lower part offering facility for 
the discharge of missile weapons, and the higher serv- 
ing as a protection against the enemy ; now it is used 
in church towers and other buildings as an orna- 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 31 

merit." Personal religion is both. It protects while 
it adorns ; it adorns while it protects. It arms from 
head to foot. It overcomes the world ; it masters the 
flesh ; it tramples on Satan. Without it no man is 
safe; with it you are prepared for life's trial, and 
sure of heaven's victory. Even the old Latin proverb 
says that "a man without religion is like a horse 
without a bridle. " Do you point me to some noble 
man without religion? I say, Whatever of nobility 
he has is due to some elements of religion which he 
has. Give him more religion, and he will manifest 
a grander nobility. 

Remember that the battlement is to be built when 
your house is built. A most important law is here 
suggested — the law of prevention. An ounce of pre- 
vention is better than pounds of cure. Better far is 
it to put a balustrade on the roof than to be picking 
up maimed and mangled bodies on the pavement be- 
low. Formation is better than reformation. A child 
kept from gross sins and won to the Lord Jesus is 
a greater miracle of grace than is the man who had 
fallen low and was then picked up. A child's con- 
version ought to be a cause of greater joy and grati- 
tude on earth, as it is in heaven, than the conver- 
sion of a gray-haired sinner. In the one case a mul- 
titude of sins have been prevented, and a life is saved 
to good and to God ; in the other case, it is true that 
a soul may be saved from hell, but many sins have 



32 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

been committed, and the life is lost to good and to 
God. In our joy at the conversion of old men, of 
drunkards and of other great sinners, we are in danger 
of forgetting the value of a child's conversion, and 
also of forming a wrong estimate of God's grace in 
its accomplishment. • The balustrade should be put 
on when the house is built. " When thou buildest a 
new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for 
thy roof," is the divine requirement. You have no 
right to expose yourself, your family and friends to 
danger, and then, after many have been destroyed, 
talk of building the battlement. This is unpardon- 
able folly ; this is unspeakable guilt. Do not trifle 
with danger. Try not how near you can drive to 
the edge of the precipice ; the good driver sees how 
far away he can keep. Do not take risks. Do not 
tempt the devil. Young men, don't talk of " sowing 
wild oats." That is the devil's phrase. That is not 
the way to get rid of a bad crop. Eemember that 
whatsoever a man soweth, that, precisely that, shall he 
reap. Bear with me, then, while I warn, rebuke, and 
encourage you. Put up the battlement now, because 
you are in peril ; your life may be lost even if your 
soul should at the last be saved, and a lost life is a 
fearful loss. Put up the battlement now, because 
you are exposing others to peril ; you are the centre 
of a circle of influences, and other lives by your con- 
duct may be saved or lost. Put up the battlement 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 33 

now, because if not now you may never do it ; time 
hastens ; this year will soon be gone ; carry not over 
into the new year a burden of unforgiven sin ; the 
balustrades ought to have been put up long ago; 
youth is going, age comes, death approaches. O 
men and women! Come to the Lord Jesus this day, 
I beseech you; and having so done, "we know that 
if" the balustrades of " our earthly house of this tab- 
ernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an 

house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 
3 



III. 
Iknowing anfc trusting 6o&. 

"And they that know thy name will put their trust in 
thee.—Ps. ix. 10. 

WE must bear in mind, in order rightly to under- 
stand a text like this, that in the Bible the 
word name stands for character, or for the person to 
whom it is applied. The expression " the name of 
the God of Jacob" is equivalent to saying the God of 
Jacob; "for my name's sake" is simply for my own 
sake. The word name in the text really stands for 
the word God. To know God's name is to know 
God — to know his character, to know himself ; and 
the word " know" means to regard with care or with 
reverence. God is revealed in the Bible by many 
names, and each name gives us a distinctive element 
in his character or an important event in the history 
of his revelation of himself. It thus comes to pass 
that treasures of truth lie hidden in these distinctive 
titles; they are revelations of God's glorious attri- 
butes. A similar law is illustrated when fresh names 

34 



KNOWING AND TRUSTING GOD. 35 

are given to men to commemorate their great deeds. 
It occasionally happens that the original name is for- 
gotten by the great mass of the people, and the man 
goes into history under the acquired title. British 
and American history furnish many illustrations of 
men in civil and military life whose great achieve- 
ments gave them new names — names which con- 
tain much of their history, and which reveal their 
true character. In like manner God's names are 
progressive manifestations of his character ; they are 
memorials of the victories of his grace and love. 

This is a deeply interesting subject. It will repay 
us to examine carefully the Bible with this thought 
in mind, observing the reasons for the new names 
which God at various stages of his progressive revela- 
tion is pleased to give himself. Such names as El 
and El Shaddai and Elohim, and many other names, 
illustrate this law. 

At this time, however, we shall limit ourselves to 
a class of Jehovah titles. Jehovah is God's name 
as expressive of his personal covenant with his 
redeemed people. It also sets him forth as the 
eternally existing One. In Exodus iii. 1-i this great 
name is distinctively ascribed to God: "And God 
said to Moses, I shall be what I shall be; and he 
said, Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, 
The I-shall-be has sent me to you." Here God's 
unchangeable character is made known in the name 



36 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

which implies his eternal self-existence. The same 
idea is frequently taught in other passages of the 
Old Testament. We shall consider only six of these 
Jehovah titles. Attention has been called to the 
fact that four of them are historic, recalling 
to after ages national and personal deliverances, 
and that the other two are prophetic. These 
two shine as diamonds in the brightness of Israel's 
future; they look forward to the reign and glory of 
Messiah. The first four, then, are historic; the re- 
maining two are prophetic; and all the six are pro- 
foundly instructive to the thoughtful student of the 
Bible. Let us take them in their order in the inspired 
narrative. 

1. We have Jehovah- Jireh — "Jehovah will see," 
or provide (Gen. xxii. 14). This is the symbolical 
name given by Abraham to the scene of his offering 
of the ram which was supplied by God in the place 
of his son. The name, doubtless, has reference to 
Abraham's reply to Isaac's question in the eighth 
verse: " God will provide himself a lamb." This is 
one of the most ancient and most precious titles of 
God. We are all familiar with the story of which 
it forms a part. The mysterious command of God, 
the loyal but sorrowful obedience of Abraham, the 
patient submission of Isaac, the journey undertaken, 
the third day, the sad preparations, the outstretched 
hand, the arresting voice, and the substitute pro- 



KNOWING AND TRUSTING GOD. 37 

vided — these are all familiar as parts of this strangely 
interesting and divinely appointed narrative. We 
are permitted to enlarge upon the lessons here taught. 
We may drop the narrative at this point, in order to 
receive the precious truths which it suggests. 

Jehovah will provide for our temporal necessities. 
We may not, indeed, fare sumptuously every day; we 
may not wear purple and fine linen — but verily we 
shall be fed. If God clothes the grass of the field, 
which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven, 
shall he not most certainly clothe us, who are made 
in his own image? He commands us to pray for 
our daily bread, and he assuredly will give that for 
which he commands us to pray. His people are as- 
sured that they shall not hunger nor thirst; that 
though the young lions shall suffer hanger his peo- 
ple shall not want any good thing. He will also 
give his people intellectual wisdom : " The secret of 
the Lord is with them that fear him." There is 
here the statement of a solemn and a universal law : 
the attainment of religious knowledge follows the 
law of attainment of every other kind of knowledge. 
Only those who seek find; only those who submit to 
the law reap its fruits. No man is qualified to pro- 
nounce on religious truth except he possess religious 
knowledge by personal experience. Christ is the 
centre of all truth. Toward him all lines of truth 
converge; from him they diverge. All truth lays 



38 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

its crown at his feet. Men who reject him who is 
the truth cannot truly acquire the truth which he 
imparts. Other things being equal, those who bow 
lowly at his feet are best fitted to walk on the lofty 
heights of truth of every kind. All science should 
be studied with this thought. Chemistry, geology, 
and astronomy are revelations of thoughts of God. 
Every angle and triangle, every sine and co-sine, re- 
veal and emphasize thoughts of the Eternal Every 
flower and plant, every tree and mountain, are the 
manifestation and revelation of sublime and divine 
thought. Only as nature is studied with reference 
to nature's God can nature be fully understood. 

But our God is especially Jehovah-Jireh in the 
matter of spiritual food. God's people shall not lack 
the food their souls require for growth in grace and 
holiness. They are a spiritual people; they are born 
again of the Spirit; they are made partakers of the 
divine nature. This new life must have constant 
supplies of spiritual food. In its beginning it desires 
the sincere milk of the Word ; later it can receive 
the strong meat of divine revelation ; always it hun- 
gers after that bread which came down from heaven. 
The soul, no more than the body, can live upon past 
supplies. The spiritual nature must have spiritual 
food. It is man's highest glory that this earth, with 
all its wealth, its honors and charms of every sort, 
cannot supply the wants of his immortal nature. If 



KNOWING AND TRUSTING GOD. 39 

man were a thing, he might find enjoyment in things ; 
but, being made in God's image, only God can 
satisfy his desires. He can never find rest until he 
finds it in the love and on the bosom of his God. 
God delights in receiving the homage of his creat- 
ures, and in supplying their spiritual wants. He 
will feed his children with marrow and fatness ; he 
will make his grace sufficient for them, and will 
strengthen them with might in the inner man. The 
experience of every Christian will justify this affir- 
mation. I appeal to that experience. Has God ever 
forsaken you? Has not his grace been sufficient for 
you from day to day? Can you not say to-day, 
" Hitherto hath the Lord helped me " ? Let the past 
encourage you for the future ; let your yesterdays be 
the prophet for your to-morrows. He that spared not 
his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how 
shall he not with him also freely give us all things ? 
He promises pardon to penitent sinners. He will 
abundantly pardon to-day. Go to him as did the 
publican, and like him you shall go down to your 
house justified . 

2. Jehovah - Ropheca — "Jehovah that healeth 
thee," or Jehovah thy physician (Exodus xv. 26). 
Let us attend for a little to the connection in which 
these words stand. The Red Sea has been crossed; 
the triumphal song of Moses has been sung, and the 
glorious refrain of Miriam has been chanted. With 



40 DIVINE BALUSTRADES 

some difficulty, perhaps, were the people induced to 
leave that shore on which they had witnessed the 
defeat of the proud Egyptian and the display of the 
power of God. The wilderness lay between them 
and Canaan. That wilderness must be trodden 
Into it they plunge : but in that wilderness of Shur 
they had no water. This was especially trying to 
those who had been accustomed to the bountiful and 
delicious waters of the Nile. They are in a dry 
and thirsty land, where no water is. Three days 
pass; they reach Marah ; their hopes are high ; their 
disappointment will be great. Marah is bitter — un- 
pleasant to the taste, and injurious to the health. 
They cannot drink. God was testing their faith and 
loyalty. Moses prayed. In obedience to the com- 
mand of God he cast into the water the tree which 
the Lord had shown him, and of a sudden the waters 
were made sweet. God's people then and now must 
learn to obey. If obedient, God promises that he 
would put none of the diseases and plagues of Egypt 
upon them. God is no respecter of persons. It has 
been well said that a disobedient Israelite will fare 
no better than a rebellious Egyptian. In connection 
with this additional promise of warding off disease 
he gives us his new and glorious name, Jehovah 
Ropheca — " I am the Lord that healeth thee. " They 
had been preserved from disease and death in Egypt 
by their obedience to God ; and the same condition 



KNOWING AND TRUSTING GOD. 41 

still holds. Jehovah provides the Lamb as the atone- 
ment for sin, and he also provides the means of pro- 
tection from disease. The Psalmist beautifully ex- 
presses this truth, and unites these two thoughts, 
when he says : " Who forgiveth all thine iniquities ; 
who healeth all thy diseases." Jesus Christ is the 
true Physician. It was foretold of him that he 
should bear our sin and our sicknesses. He is the 
true Jehovah-Ropheca. Without adopting the ex- 
treme view of those who have come to be known as 
faith-healers, we must still admit that sin and dis- 
ease are mysteriously connected. Weakness and sin 
came together. To one whom he healed Jesus said : 
" Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee. " 
We are looking forward to the time when there will 
be no sickness — when no inhabitant of that blessed 
realm shall say, I am sick. Christ is the Healer of 
the diseases of the mind as well as those of the body. 
The man who wandered among the tombs needed the 
healing presence of Jesus Christ. The lunatic child 
was cured by the divine Lord. He is also the Physi- 
cian for the soul. Soul-sickness is the most terrible 
of diseases. A sin-sick soul only Christ can heal. 
In the thirty-second Psalm we have a description of 
such a soul. There was no rest all day long; the 
moisture was turned into the drought of summer. 
Not until the transgression was forgiven and the sin 
covered could there be rest and peace. Only when 



42 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

the pardoning voice of Christ is heard may sinful 
man or woman "go into peace." May the healing 
power and forgiving grace of Christ be felt now, 
alike in body and soul ! 

3. Jehovah-Nissi — "Jehovah my banner." Exo- 
dus xvii. 15 : " And Moses built an altar and called the 
name of it Jehovah-Nissi." This symbolic title was 
given by Moses to the altar which he erected on the 
hill where his hands, uplifted in prayer, had caused 
Israel to prevail, and had secured the defeat of 
Amalek by Joshua and his chosen warriors at Re- 
phidim. Perhaps the significance of the name is 
found in the allusions to a staff which Moses held as 
if it were a banner during the battle. As it was 
raised or lowered, the fortune of the battle turned in 
favor of the Israelites or of the Amalekites. God is 
thus recognized in this memorial as the deliverer of 
his people — as he who leads them to victory, as he 
who is their rally ing-point in time of trial and danger. 
We remember that the Amalekites were the descend- 
ants of Esau, and that they hated the Israelites be- 
cause of the birthright and blessing which were 
given to Jacob and not to Esau. Their country was 
south of the Philistines ; they therefore went out of 
their own territory to assail Israel. This is the first 
case of Gentile antagonism to Israel since they 
marched out of Egypt. Israel must now gird on the 
sword and contend with stout arm and brave heart for 



KNOWING AND TRUSTING GOD. 43 

national independence. Joshua is here mentioned 
for the first time, and comes before ns as the com- 
mander-in-chief in this expedition. The Amalekites, 
prepared for battle, cowardly and basely fall upon 
the rear, and slay the faint and feeble of the people. 
Moses with his wonder-working rod takes his stand 
on the neighboring hill. Joshua fights; Moses 
prays ; both serve God's Israel and Israel's God. The 
rod which had summoned the plagues of Egypt, and 
under which Israel went out of the house of bondage, 
is still mighty as the symbol of God's presence and 
power. That uplifted rod appealed to God, but the 
strong arm of Moses became weary; and he sits 
while Aaron and Hur alternately stay up his hands 
until the going down of the sun. Israel or Amalek 
prevailed according as the hands of Moses were up 
or down. Amalek is defeated; Israel is triumphant ; 
and Jehovah gave the victory. Either on the hill 
overlooking the battle-field, or on the field itself, the 
altar with this inscription was erected. God was 
recognized in this memorial altar as the deliverer of 
his people. 

The battle rages still. The hosts of sin are many 
and strong, but God is still Jehovah-Nissi. Too 
often we forget God and trust in ourselves or in our 
fellow-men. Then defeat is inevitable. How glori- 
ously ring out the words of the Psalmist: "The 
Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I 



44 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom 
shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even mine 
enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my 
flesh, they stumbled and fell. Though an host 
should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear." 
The Psalmist also rejoicingly says, " Thou hast given 
a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be dis- 
played because of the truth." The Apostle Paul also 
affirms that our weapons are not carnal, but spiritual. 
Jehovah-Nissi is still our battle-cry. 

'Mid mightiest foes, most feeble are we, 
Yet trembling, in every conflict they flee ; 
The Lord is our banner ; the battle is his, 
The weakest of saints more than conqueror is. 

4. Jehovah- Shalom — " Then Gideon built an altar 
there unto the Lord, and called it Jehovah- Shalom" 
(Judges vi. 24). The altar erected by Gideon in 
Ophrah was so called in memory of the salutation 
given him by the angel of Jehovah. The meaning 
of this title is " Jehovah peace," that is, Jehovah gives 
peace, or prosperity. It is equivalent to the saluta- 
tion, " Peace be unto thee. " This altar was the token 
by fire of the coming victory over Baal. Peace was 
to be the fruit of that victory. The story is deeply 
interesting, but there is not time to give it in detail. 
We are reminded of the triumphant words of the 
apostle in his letter to the Romans : " Therefore, be- 
ing justified by faith, we have peace with God 



KNOWING AND TRUSTING GOD. 43 

through our Lord Jesus Christ." The Jehovah- 
Shalom of the Old Testament is the " God of peace " 
of the New Testament. The apostle also assures us 
that the God of peace will bruise Satan under our 
feet. It is also affirmed that Jehovah will give 
strength unto his people, and that Jehovah will bless 
his people with peace. The angels sang the song of 
peace on the night of Christ's birth. Before he left 
his disciples he gave them the legacy of his peace, 
and as he came back to them triumphant from the 
grave, his salutation was, "Peace be unto you!" 
And after his ascent to heaven, the apostle speaks of 
his Father and ours as the " God of peace. " This 
peace God's people may enjoy. It is a peace which 
the world can neither give nor take away — a peace 
which passeth all understanding; a peace which is 
Christ's peculiar gift, and which is the foretaste of 
the bliss of heaven. 

It has been sweetly enjoyed in hours of sickness and 
sorrow, and in times of pain and death. When sin 
is forgiven, and the heart is reconciled to God, peace 
comes as a heavenly visitant to go no more out for- 
ever. A ship may be tossed violently upon the sur- 
face of the deep, but by its side an iceberg will float 
undisturbed by wind or wave. The secret of its 
calmness of movement is that the greater part of its 
bulk has gone down deep into the sea, where the 
waters are undisturbed by wind or wave. When a 



46 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

believer's life goes down into the deep things of God, 
he, too, can calmly outride every storm and gloriously 
triumph over every foe. May the peace of God abide 
with us evermore ! 

5. Jehovah-Tsidkenu — " Jehovah our righteous- 
ness." 

" In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell 
safely; and this is his name whereby he shall be called, the 
Lord our Righteousness. 1 ' 1 — Jer. xxiii. 6. 

As we have already seen, the four previous Jeho- 
vah titles are historic; but this and the one that 
follows are prophetic. This epithet is applied by the 
prophet to the Messiah. It is also applied to Jeru- 
salem, because that city was symbolic of the future 
prosperity of God's chosen people in the Christian 
dispensation. Many believe that the epithet here 
given by Jeremiah ought to be regarded as ascribing 
to the Messiah the name Jehovah; others, that it 
is simply an expression of the faith of Israel that 
through the Messiah righteousness shall flourish. 
One loves to adopt the former rather than the latter 
interpretation. This title of God has often been the 
watchword of his dear children. They love to asso- 
ciate it with the apostle when he speaks of "the 
righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus 
Christ unto all and upon all them that believe." 
Every thoughtful man recognizes his need of a right- 



KNOWING AND TRUSTING GOD. 47 

eousness which naturally he does not possess. He 
knows that the law is exceeding broad ; and he feels the 
need of a righteousness equally broad. He knows that 
God cannot look upon sin with pleasure; and he feels 
his need of a righteousness on which the eye of the 
great God may rest with complacency. He feels the 
need of a righteousness richer than that which angel 
ever possessed ; and he knows that if Christ be his 
righteousness he shall be clothed with a robe pure as 
the light and more glorious than angel or seraph ever 
wore. He rejoices when he realizes that Christ is 
in him as his hope and glory. He can triumphantly 
say, with heroic and devout Paul : " There is, there- 
fore, now no condemnation to them which are in 
Christ Jesus." He can fearlessly ask, with the same 
matchless apostle : " Who is he that condemneth ? It 
is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, 
who is even at the right hand of God, who also 
maketh intercession for us." Jehovah-Tsidkenu, as 
we have often sung in McCheyne's familiar hymn, 
will be our inspiration in life, our watchword in 
death, and the theme of our loftiest song in eternity. 
6. Jehovah-Shammah — "Jehovah there." 

" It ivas round about eighteen thousand measures: and the 
name of the city from that day shall be, TJie Lord is there. "— 
Ezek. xlviii. 35. 

This title designates the place where God dwells. 



48 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

It was the symbolic name given by Ezekiel to the 
spiritual vision of Jerusalem which he enjoyed. It 
belongs to the class of figures descriptive of the New 
Jerusalem in the Apocalypse. In the Old Testament 
it is a prophetic description and type of the Church 
in the Christian dispensation. It reminds us of the 
beautiful name Immanuel — " God with us. " Perhaps 
its primary reference was to the situation of Jeru- 
salem after the exile, but in the New Testament the 
vision is enlarged and carried forward until the 
symbol is more fittingly applied to the heavenly 
home of the saints of God. God has promised to 
dwell with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit ; 
so that of the heart of every lowly believer we may 
say, Jehovah-Shammah. God has also promised to 
be in the place of prayer; for did not the Master 
himself say, " Where two or three are gathered to- 
gether in my name, there am I in the midst of them" ? 
This is a peculiarly precious promise. From the 
redeemed heart we go out to a place where redeemer 1 
men and women meet, and once more we can say, 
Jehovah-Shammah. But the circle must still be 
enlarged. Not only does God dwell in the redeemed 
heart and in the place of prayer, but also in the re- 
deemed earth : " And I heard a great voice out of 
heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is 
with men, and he will dwell with them, and they 
shall be his people, and God himself shall be with 



KNOWING AND TRUSTING GOD. 49 

them, and be their God." Over every home in 
this redeemed earth may be placed the title Jehovah- 
Shammah. Glorious title — precious privilege — happy 
people ! There are no people so blessed as the people 
of God. Heaven comes down to earth and abides in 
their hearts and homes. Paradise is regained in 
their sweet experience. 

We are carried back to our text : " They that know 
thy name will put their trust in thee." Will you 
trust him here and now? They who know him 
best trust him most. That men do not trust him 
is the best evidence that they do not know him. If 
you knew him in all the sweetness and blessedness 
of his character, you could not but love and trust 
him. All the revelations of God in his word and 
works are such as to lead men to trust him with all 
their hearts. Come to him now, and you shall know 
him as ever present, Jehovah- Shammah, as your 
righteousness, Jehovah-Tsidkenu, as your peace, 
Jehovah- Shalom, as your banner, Jehovah-Nissi, as 
your physician, Jehovah-Ropheca, as your provider, 
Jehovah- Jireh, as your all and in all forevermore. 



IV. 
(Sob's answer b\> ]fire. 

1 Kings xviii. 22-40. 

THE topic which comes before us for our con- 
sideration to-night is God's answer by fire on 
Mount Carmel. The portion of Scripture which 
contains the history I have already read to you, as 
found in the first Book of Kings, the eighteenth 
chapter, beginning with the twenty-second and 
going to the end of the fortieth verse. 

Having considered last Sunday evening the con- 
vocation on Mount Carmel, and having heard Elijah's 
personal question to the assembled people — "How 
long halt ye between two opinions?" — we are now 
prepared to consider this great and memorable scene. 
This part of Elijah's history is in perfect harmony 
with the entire purpose of his earthly mission. He 
came to restore God's broken covenant, and to lead 
God's Israel back again to God's worship. Just at 
this point in their history some great and decisive 

act was necessary in order strikingly to arrest the 

50 



GOD'S ANSWER BY FIRE. 51 

attention of the nation, and in order most sublimely to 
give God an opportunity to declare his presence and 
his power. This was, then, the appropriate time 
for a great display of power and authority on the 
part of God. Ahab and the court on the one hand, 
and Israel as a whole on the other, had been bowed 
down because of the long and terrible famine. They 
are now more ready to listen to God's voice and to 
understand the manifestations of his will. 

It was a time of judgment for all classes ; it was 
a time of terrible defeat for the foes of God ; it was a 
time of glorious victory for the friends of God. The 
question is now to be decided, once for all, whether 
Jehovah is God or whether Baal is God. The day, 
therefore, marks an epoch in the history of Elijah, 
in the history of Israel, and in the history of God's 
redemptive plan. This day marks the climax of Eli- 
jah's life; it is the very acme of his earthly career 
and divine mission. His personality always shines 
out with great grandeur, but never was it so grand 
as on this occasion. His heroism was always lofty ; 
but to-night we shall see him sublimely heroic as 
he stands for truth and for God, alone among the 
hundreds of Baal's worshippers. I make bold to say 
that there is no picture in all secular history, and 
that there are but few pictures in sacred story, that 
can for grandeur and sublimity be compared with 
this picture. Here, as nowhere else in the Bible, we 



52 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

see the greatness and glory of a man who stands for 
God in the presence of God's bitter foes. No wonder 
that poetry with lofty genius, no wonder that painting 
with the brush of inspiration, no wonder that music 
with consecrated art should find in this grand theme 
the occasion for noble achievement ! The great com- 
poser has poured his soul into his immortal oratorio ; 
and nowhere is it grander than when he represents 
the wild cries of the priests of Baal and the humble, 
trustful supplication of the prophet of God. I am 
glad that in the course of these Sunday night sermons 
we have now reached the point where we may sit 
for a time in God's house, and have this sublime 
picture on Mount Carmel pass in panoramic vision 
before us. 

ISTo doubt Ahab and the people of Israel expected 
that now the heavens would be opened and the earth 
be refreshed with rain; but Elijah's God knows that 
a work of preparation is necessary before he can 
unlock the windows of heaven. There must be evi- 
dence of genuine repentance and sincere reformation. 
To grant the blessing of rain before the people had 
given evidence that they had turned from idolatry to 
the worship of the true God would be no kindness. 
Elijah, therefore, proposes to put the whole question 
now to a decisive test — whether Jehovah is God or 
whether Baal is God. Doubtless all through this 
transaction he acted under divine instruction ; other- 



GOD'S ANSWER BY FIRE. 53 

wise his conduct would not be justifiable. He would 
have been guilty of presumption had not God so led 
him; but God had doubtless so communicated his 
will that this test should be made, and that this re- 
sult should be secured. It was great condescension 
on the part of God that he should go into competi- 
tion with Baal — into competition with an idol which, 
as Paul tells us, " is nothing in the world. " But God 
knows that his claims are incontestably right, and 
he is not afraid to submit them to the severest test 
on the part of man. We know that God's truth to- 
day will stand the fire heated "one seven times 
more than it was wont to be heated," and it shall 
come out without the smell of fire upon one of its 
pages. I am willing to submit Christianity to all 
forms of honest criticism ; for I know that its pure 
gold will shine in its heavenly glory and matchless 
splendor all the brighter because of the test to which 
it has been thus subjected. 

But Elijah stands before us very conspicuously as 
the leading actor in this strange drama. We gaze 
at him for a moment as he stands there alone ; and 
his solitary condition would excite our sympathy did 
we not know that he is not alone, for he who is 
" mightier than the mightiest " is by his side. He is 
like a sheep in the midst of wolves ; he is like a lily 
in the midst of briars ; he is like a solitary oak on 
the mountain-top, while God's thunders roll, God's 



54 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

lightnings flash, and God's tempests sweep the 
mountain's brow. But, as the oak is only the more 
firmly rooted when so exposed, so Elijah's faith 
grasped the eternal God ; and there he stood . We 
glance at him a moment, with his sheep-skin cape, 
with his long, flowing, shaggy locks, with his hum- 
ble but dignified mien, as he walks out in the path 
which God has thus appointed for him, as we listen 
to his proposal. I need not stop to read it to you ; 
you are familiar with it. You may ask why he did 
not propose that God's answer should come by water 
and not by fire? There were special reasons why it 
should be by fire on this occasion. Fire, in connec- 
tion with sacrifice, is the symbol of atonement ; and 
the truth taught by an atoning sacrifice must be em- 
phasized before the sin of the people could be taken 
away. Should God send the fire, this would show that 
the sacrifice was well-pleasing. God was accustomed 
to answer by fire. This fact was perhaps another 
reason why this form of test was suggested. Go 
back to the very dawn of history, and you discover 
that God answered by fire in the case of Abel's sacri- 
fice. God manifested himself by fire in the destruc- 
tion of Sodom and Gomorrah; he manifested 
himself by fire when Moses stood by the burning 
bush ; by fire when Israel stood by the base of trem- 
bling Sinai, while God's law was proclaimed to the 
assembled hosts. God answered by fire when the 



GOD'S ANSWER BY FIRE. 55 

sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, offered strange 
fire upon God's altar. And in the memory of some 
living in Elijah's time God had gloriously answered 
by fire at the conclusion of Solomon's dedicatory 
prayer, when fire came down from heaven, and the 
glory of God filled the Temple so that the priests were 
not able to continue their worship. And gloriously 
God answered by fire on the day of Pentecost, when 
the Holy Spirit came as a tongue of flame and " sat 
upon each of them." A further reason, no doubt, 
was because Baal was regarded as the god of fire, 
the god of the sun, the god of heaven. He was the 
"heaven-sun-fire" god. This was, therefore, a con- 
spicuously just proposal on the part of Elijah; for 
fire was Baal's own element. If the test had been 
by water it might have seemed that Elijah was tak- 
ing an unjust advantage ; but Baal was the god of 
fire, and if he could not succeed when he was operat- 
ing in his own realm, then he was worthless indeed. 
We see Elijah's justness, and at the same time his 
skilfulness, in making this form of test. It shall be 
a trial by fire. " And all the people answered and 
said, It is well spoken. " 

You discover further that Elijah gives the prophets 
of Baal the precedency. They are many. I imag- 
ine that at this point the priests of Baal would gladly 
have evaded the test ; but it was not possible for them 
so to do. They rely, perhaps, on the doubt as to 



56 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

whether Elijah can accomplish his purpose. They 
rely, perhaps, also, on the hope that by some deceit- 
ful movement, some sleight-of-hand practice, they 
may conceal fire among the wood. We know that 
it was not considered beneath the dignity of these 
idolatrous priests, by subterranean channels and vari- 
ous other forms of deceptions, to inject fire into the 
wood, and thus lead the worshippers to suppose that 
fire had come from their deity. This Elijah seems 
to have anticipated ; so he takes pains to assert that 
they " shall put no fire under, " and is watchful and 
alert throughout the whole proceeding. They took 
the bullock, dressed it, and began to call on Baal. It 
is morning. I suppose that many of them spent the 
previous night on the mountain. Look — the sun is 
rising ! Baal is the god of the sun. They wait until 
they see its first rays before they begin their petition ; 
and as they see the eastern sky beautiful with the 
crimson and gold of approaching day they begin 
their prayer. They cry out : " Ha Baal anaenu ! Ha 
Baal anaenu!" — "O Baal, hear us! O Baal, hear 
us!" Mountain height echoes to mountain height 
with their wild cries. All through that forenoon 
they cry unto Baal. And now it is noon. Elijah 
has spent all these morning hours in perfect silence. 
The sun is now pouring down his scorching rays 
upon the mountain-top. Surely, at this hour, if ever, 
the fire shall come ! But no ! the heavens are silent, 



GOD'S ANSWER BY FIRE, 57 

the altar is cold. Now Elijah speaks his cutting 
words — words of biting sarcasm ; words of sharpest 
irony ; words that must have lashed these priests into 
perfect fury. Some have been surprised that Elijah 
should so speak. As Dean Stanley says, his words 
seem to lack "the general humanity of the New 
Testament and the general seriousness of the Old." 
But Elijah was not frivolous. On the contrary, he 
was never more intensely in earnest than now. To 
scorn such folly as that of which they were guilty is 
the right kind of treatment. He answered fools ac- 
cording to their folly. Sometimes, as has been sug- 
gested, the only answer to make to certain self -con- 
ceited opponents of religion is fie, fie ! pooh, pooh ! — 
just as you would talk to children ; because reason 
will not have weight with such unreasonable oppo- 
nents of truth and God. I do not know where in all 
literature j^ou will find words of more biting sarcasm ; 
and they nobly served their purpose. Elijah was 
princely. It is glorious to look at him and inspir- 
ing to hear him. Alone on the mountain-top he 
walks among those excited priests like a king; he 
speaks as if he were master of the situation, as in- 
deed he was. Some of his words contain a most 
suggestive euphemism, which reduces Baal to the 
lowest degree of contempt. Elijah was conscious 
of God's protection, else he would not have dared 
to utter words of such terrible severity. He throws 



58 DIVINE BALUSTRADES 

such contempt on their miserable god that argument 
is unnecessary. 

It is certain that they took Elijah at his word. 
They cried the more to the silent heavens ; but the 
silence was not broken, the heavens heard not. The 
altar was cold ; the fire fell not at that noonday hour. 
And now they begin, according to their custom, to 
cut themselves with knives and lancets until the 
blood gushed out and mingled with the sacrifice. 
The dervishes at the present day cry out in their wild 
worship, Allah ! Allah ! They whirl about with great 
speed; they leap and dance to the sound of cymbals 
and drums; they even cut themselves with knives 
and swords, until they faint from pain and loss of 
blood. Baal's priests were driven to like frenzy. In 
their fury they leaped from the altar, while their 
blood streamed over their torn vestments and lacer- 
ated bodies. But the heavens were mute; the altar 
was cold. No god, no man, regarded their cry. 
" There was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor 
any that regarded." 

And now it is afternoon — about three o'clock. It 
is about the very time when, years after, the great 
Sacrifice was offered — not on Mount Carmel, but on 
Mount Calvary. Elijah comes forward. He is calm 
and majestic. There is authority in his words; 
there is dignity in his acts. " Come near unto me !" 
"And all the people came near unto him." The 



GOD'S ANSWER BY FIRE. 59 

ruined altar with his own hands he rebuilds, with 
twelve stones. He comes not to introduce a new 
religion, but to re-establish the old. The twelve 
stones preach a sermon regarding God's covenant and 
the twelve tribes of undivided Israel. The separation 
of the ten was not recognized by God. Round the 
altar a trench is dug ; the wood is put in order ; the 
bullock is cut in pieces and laid on the wood. From 
the neighboring well, as there is reason to believe, 
four barrels of water are taken and poured upon the 
sacrifice and the wood, that there might be no possi- 
bility of imposture. Three times over this is done, 
until the water ran round about the altar and also 
filled the trench. All is now in readiness. Will the 
fire come? Will God hear? This is the time of the 
evening sacrifice, the holiest hour in Israeli tish wor- 
ship. It is drawing toward sunset, and yonder in 
the Temple at Jerusalem the priests are offering their 
evening sacrifice as the sun sinks behind Olivet. 
Elijah is preparing to plead with God. Gaze on the 
picture ! See him as he retires a pace or two ! Fol- 
low him for a little as he makes his preparations ! 
All is now ready. This is a sublime sight. Every 
eye is upon him. Brave man! God help him! For 
if he fails, his own body, before the sun shall set, 
will be cut into pieces, and will be lying beside the 
body of the bullock on the altar. If he fails, God is 
dishonored and Baal triumphant. He is calm and 



60 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

dignified; his trust is in the Lord his God. He 
offers his prayer. It is simple and sublime. Look at 
it ! You discover as you examine it that it is very 
short. There are no vain repetitions. He is trust- 
ful as he lifts his heart toward God. " Lord God of 
Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this 
day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy 
servant, and that I have done all these things at thy 
word ! Hear me, O Lord, hear me ! that this people 
may know that thou art the Lord God, and that 
thou hast turned their heart back again." 

You will discover, as you listen to the prayer, the 
title which he here gives God. He is the " Lord God 
of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel." Just as Elijah had 
twelve stones in his altar, indicating that the twelve 
tribes were not separate in God's purpose and cove- 
nant, so in this prayer he recognizes the covenant 
relation between God and his people. You discover 
that he uses two pleas : first, God's glory, and second, 
the people's good. He has ceased speaking. An 
unearthly stillness is over the mountain. The priests 
are breathless. The assembled hosts watch and wait 
with wildly throbbing hearts. Shall God hear? O 
God, hear Elijah's prayer! Hush! look! the fire is 
coming ! It falls ; it strikes the altar ! In a moment 
more the sacrifice is consumed, the wood is burned, 
the stones are consumed, and the dust; and the fiery 
tongues lick up the water that was in the trench. 



GOD'S ANSWER BY FIRE. 61 

God has answered by fire! Elijah is victorious; 
Baal is overthrown. Glory be to God for his won- 
drous mercy to Elijah his servant ! 

The effect upon the people is marvellous. They 
fall upon their faces for a little; and then they wake 
the echoes amid the mountain peaks with the war- 
cry, " Eli- jah-hu, Eli-jah-hu! Jehovah, he is the 
God ! Jehovah, he is the God !" In a moment more 
the priests of Baal are seized, as guilty offenders 
against God's law, according as it is recorded in 
Deut. xiii. 5-11. At the command of Elijah, 
Ahab not opposing, they are dragged down the 
mountain-side. The people are aroused; Elijah's 
word is law ; the old zeal for God is rekindled ; the 
people recognize that these priests have been de- 
ceivers, that they have opposed God and the highest 
interests of the whole kingdom. They are accord- 
ingly brought down to the banks of the Kishon. 
Executioners are numerous. The priests are slain, 
and are thrown into the dry bed of the Kishon. 
When the storm comes, as it will in a little time, the 
Kishon shall be filled with a rushing torrent, and 
these crimsoned waters shall bear these dishonored 
bodies into the depths of the blue Mediterranean. 

I cannot stop to speak at length of the charge of 
cruelty which has been made against Elijah. "We 
are to remember that we are in the Old Testament, 
not in the New. Bear in mind, also, that these men 



62 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

forfeited their lives because they violated the law. 
They were guilty not only of sin against God, but of 
crime against the nation. God was the head of the 
State and the Church : and Elijah was his vicegerent. 
Not as a barbarous conqueror, but as the appointed 
executioner, did he inflict deserved punishment on 
these great sinners When God accomplishes great 
national reforms he often sacrifices many lives. 
When God delivered England from some of her 
fiercest foes he made Cromwell his Elijah. When 
God destroyed slavery in America he sacrificed a 
million of Americans ; and men said, " It is terrible ; 
but a million lives for the freedom of four million 
slaves are well spent." That was God's providence. 
This is God's providence. There is no great differ- 
ence between God's relation to the destruction of the 
four hundred and fifty priests of Baal (for the four 
hundred priests which fed at Jezebel's table seem to 
have declined the test by fire), and his relation to 
the destruction of a million of men in our war. It is 
God working through different instrumentalities. If 
men would only reason they would see this truth. 
They are unreasonable in thinking that God was 
cruel in Elijah's case, while they see no divine cruelty 
in the arbitrament of civil war, or in the destruction 
of life in great epidemics caused by sinful neglect of 
sanitary and moral laws. 

And now, follow me in a suggestion or two. The 



GOD'S ANSWER BY FIRE. 63 

first one is this: Men and women, you must decide 
who will be your God. You must decide, I tell you ; 
you are on trial to-night. Who is your God? Is it 
gold or worldly ambition ? Is it self or Christ? Who 
is your God? You are on trial to-night. As God's 
messenger I urge you to decide this question. " If the 
Lord be God, follow him — if Baal, then follow him." 
Yes, follow him if he is God. Who is your God to- 
night, man and woman? Have you recognized God 
to-day? Have words of prayer been spoken by your 
lips? Have your knees bowed at any altar? I give 
these priests credit for their earnestness. See how 
they cry, from sunrise till noon ! See how their blood 
is mingled with their sacrifice ! They rebuke us. Ah ! 
will you give the answer to me to-night, " Jehovah 
is my God, Jesus Christ is my God ; I have enthroned 
him in my heart?" Can you say it? 

The second lesson is this: The time is coming 
when the men who worship the world and self and 
sin shall cry, and there shall be no answer — no one 
to regard their prayer. In the Book of Revelation 
we have a wonderful description of a prayer-meeting 
— a great, a solemn prayer-meeting. "The great 
men, the rich men, and the chief captains, and the 
mighty men, and every bondman, and every free- 
man" made up this great meeting. They hid them- 
selves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains, 
and they said to the mountains and rocks, " Fall on 



C4 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

us and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on 
the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb!" But 
the rocks do not fall ; the mountains still stand ; the 
prayer is unanswered. Oh, if you worship any god 
other than God you shall cry in vain ! The hour of 
sickness, distress, and disease and death shall come; 
and you shall go into the dark valley of the shadow 
of death with no staff to support you. Oh, how 
terrible to live without God and to die without hope! 
— to go out into blackness and darkness alone — no 
friendly eye to see your steps, and no loving ear to 
hear your cry ! That is terrible ! 

You will notice, third, that God has done more to 
convince us than he did to convince Israel on Mount 
Carmel. There has been a greater fire kindled than 
that on Mount Carmel. That was great; it was, 
indeed, supernatural. It burned up the pieces of the 
bullock first, then the wood and stones and the dust. 
The usual course which fire takes was reversed. 
That was a wonderful occasion ; but a more wonder- 
ful thing has occurred. The Son of God has come. 
The Word was made flesh. He has sanctified the 
cradle, for he was a babe ; he has sanctified mother- 
hood, for he was born of a woman ; he has blessed 
childhood, for he was a child. God came from 
heaven in the person of his Son, and tabernacled in 
human flesh. The cradle is more wonderful than 
Elijah's altar, the carpenter shop in Nazareth than 



GOD'S ANSWER BY FIRE. 65 

Elijah's altar. Blessed be God, Mount Calvary is 
to Mount Carmel as substance is to shadow ! And yet 
you are unmoved ; you have not cried unto Jesus as 
your Prophet, Priest, and King. I tell you, in sober 
truth, it will be worse for you in the day of judgment 
than for the priests of Baal, if you refuse Jesus Christ 
as your Saviour. 

And, lastly, God still answers by fire. The fire of 
his Holy Spirit is his witness. He answered by 
fire on the day of Pentecost. He still answers by 
fire — the fire of love, the fire of Christian devotion 
in the hearts of his saints. And he will answer 
scorners by fire. The Bible speaks of those who are 
" reserved unto fire." Christ is yet to come in " flam- 
ing fire," taking vengeance on them who know not 
God. The Apostle tells us " Our God is a consuming 
fire." Oh, may God answer to-night by the fire of 
his Holy Spirit in the hearts of us all, for his 

name's sake! 
5 



V. 

©beoience tbe Gest of Xove. 

"If ye love me keep my commandments." — John xiv. 15. 

THIS verse is the beginning of one of the most 
remarkable sections of this chapter. It is intro- 
duced here with a certain degree of abruptness. As 
you know, many times during this discourse Christ 
spoke words whose design was to comfort his disci- 
ples. Now, however, he promised, as we shall soon 
see, to send the Spirit, part of whose office was to be 
the Comforter of his people; but Christ teaches that 
in order to enjoy the comfort of the promised Spirit 
they must render strict obedience to the divine re- 
quirements. We have before us, then, in this verse 
this morning, the practical test of love — obedience. 
The whole round of Christian duty is here summed 
up in this one word — obedience. As love is the ful- 
filling of the law, so that fulfilment in harmony with 



OBEDIENCE THE TEST OF LOVE. 07 

the principle of love is manifested by practical obedi- 
ence to the divine requirements. 

Obedience Gives Comfort. 

You will observe that in comforting the disciples 
Christ teaches them to keep his commandments. 
We may not expect a blessing from God except we 
render obedience to God. The way of duty is ever- 
more the way of peace and joy. If we do the duty 
of to-day God will give us the blessing of to-day; 
but if we fail in our performance God necessarily 
fails in his fulfilment. You notice that this prac- 
tical test of love lies in this chapter between two 
gracious promises — that contained in the fourteenth 
verse, " If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will 
do it," and that contained in the sixteenth verse, 
" And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you 
another Comforter, that he may abide with you for- 
ever." Almost all commentators have been struck 
by the abruptness with which the text is introduced ; 
but some have not been ready to see its connection 
with what precedes and with what follows. If the 
remarks I have now made are correct you will not fail 
to see the connection. This command, then, lies be- 
tween two promises; and, in order that we may re- 
ceive either promise, we must obey the command. 
God cannot give us the blessing except we obey the 
command. If we are to ask in the name of the as- 



68 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

cended Lord for blessings in prayer we must render 
loving and obedient service. After Christ had shown 
his love to his disciples he appealed to their love to 
him. John gives us in his first epistle, fifth chap- 
ter and third verse, an evidence of our conversion, 
when he says : " For this is the love of God, that we 
keep his commandments." Paul speaks in Romans, 
thirteenth chapter and tenth verse, the same lan- 
guage, when he says : " Love is the fulfilling of the 
law." Love prompts to every duty; love inspires to 
every sacrifice ; love gives wings to our feet as we 
run in the way of God's commandments; love cush- 
ions the yoke of duty so that it becomes easy ; and 
love lifts the burden of service so that it becomes 
light. Evermore, enjoyment of God is the closest 
neighbor to obedience to God. 

Obedience the Best Proof of Love. 

It is observable, also, that Christ here teaches the 
disciples that the best way to show their love to him 
is by obedience. They were overcome with grief at 
the thought of his departure; and he teaches them 
that actively obeying is a more genuine manifestation 
of love than pouring out useless tears at his depart- 
ure. " Obedience is better than sacrifice " is an Old 
Testament proverb, which is abundantly illustrated in 
the New Testament. Indeed, obedience is the very 
highest form of sacrifice — for it shows that we make 



OBEDIENCE THE TEST OE LOVE. 09 

a sacrifice of self and of selfish interests. Not senti- 
mental sighing and crying is the trne way to illus- 
trate genuine love on the part of the disciples toward 
their Lord. Love can never be satisfied with mere 
sentiment; love is never inoperative. Love marches 
out along the line of practical service ; it rejoices in 
the slightest command of Christ. Love obeys. If 
the commandment be deemed small, the love that 
keeps it is thereby the greater love. It never asks, 
Is this command essential to salvation? Love knows 
that the keeping of all Christ's commands is essen- 
tial to obedience. We may, indeed, do what Christ 
commands us and yet not keep his commandments. 
No man keeps his command if he does so with any 
other motive than that of loyalty to Christ. Motives 
of self-interest, worldly advancement, or spiritual 
prominence utterly rob even a good act of its true 
spirit. You may thus obey the command, and yet 
not in the full sense keep the command. In order to 
keep it, it must be kept purely and solely because it 
is Christ's command. That is the Christian's high- 
est authority; that is his last and highest form of 
service, Christ has said it — that is enough. A 
Christian inspired by love never asks, " How little 
can I do and win heaven?" He simply asks, as did 
Paul when stricken down on the Damascus high- 
way : " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" No 
Christian man ever occupies a more unenviable po- 



70 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

sition than the man who stands beside a cross and 
asks, " Is the taking up of that cross necessary to my 
salvation?" He ought to blush to ask such a ques- 
tion. He ought simply to listen to his Lord's voice, 
which says : " Take up thy cross and follow me. " 
Let him step out and take it up. Observe the min- 
uteness of Christ's language. He says : " Take up 
thy cross." Too many of us drag it. It is heavy 
when we drag it ; but, taken up, it will soon take us 
up; the cross that we hold will soon hold us. Does 
Christ command me to believe in him? Then I 
will doit. Does Christ command me to be baptized? 
Then I will do it, because Christ has said it. He is 
the highest authority. 

Obedience Brings Blessings. 

You observe also that when Christ would tell his 
disciples how to receive conditional blessings he 
commands them to obey him. He had given great 
and precious promises ; but their fulfilment depended 
on certain conditions. Our obedience is necessary to 
God's bestowment. Ke wards from God to disobedi- 
ent children would be putting a premium on disobe- 
dience. That God will never do. He loves you too 
much to give you the richest blessings of his grace 
while you refuse to render him the obedience of your 
heart. Men often want all the blessings of a Chris- 
tian life before they are willing to take the first step 



OBEDIENCE THE TEST OF LOVE. 71 

in the Christian life. They linger at the wicket- 
gate, unwilling to step through until God gives them 
all the experiences of a long Christian life. God can 
never give them the Christian's joy until they per- 
form the Christian's duty. The blessings of that 
pathway are experienced only in that pathway. 
Standing outside the gate you cannot have the bless- 
ing of those inside the gate and running in the path 
of duty. I am sometimes amazed, as I speak with 
inquirers, that they do not discover this truth. They 
want all the peace which the Christian enjoys before 
they are willing to give Christ their trust. Christ 
commands them to come unto him and he will give 
them rest ; but they want his peace before they will 
give him their trust. You must take Christ at his 
word. You must obey ; you must go in the way of 
duty; and in the very act of obedience Christ will 
meet you and flood your soul with joy. On the morn- 
ing of the resurrection, when the women came to the 
tomb, they saw not Jesus ; but they saw an angel, 
who said : " Go quickly and tell his disciples 
that he is risen from the dead." They were disap- 
pointed ; they saw not his body — but still they obeyed 
the command of the angel. We are told that they 
"did run to bring his disciples word." We read 
next : " That as they went to tell his disciples, behold 
Jesus met them." How blessed! They were run- 
ning from his tomb — the very spot where they ex- 



72 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

pected they should see him, at least in death; and 
now, as they are running in the path of obedience, 
Jesus meets them by the way, and his " All hail !" 
filled their souls with joy. Precisely so does Jesus 
meet with us. When the ten lepers went, in obedi- 
ence to Christ's command, to show themselves to the 
priests, the healing power came upon them. You 
must obey Christ; you must give him your trust; 
you must believe in him. Believe him in the dark. 
Anybody can believe in the light. Take him at 
his word; and, my word for it, his word for it, the 
darkness shall be scattered and the glorious light 
shall shine upon your souls. 

God must obey his own law in the bestowment of 
blessings. He is not harsh, not arbitrary, not fickle, 
not capricious in dealing with men. The spirit of 
obedience on our part is necessary, that we may re- 
ceive the highest form of spiritual good. This is 
the divine law. Christ cannot be a Prophet to any 
man to whom he is not a King — not a Priest to any 
man to whom he is not a King. He is a Prophet to 
instruct only when he is a King to command. He 
is a Priest to atone only when he is a King to com- 
mand. If I refuse his kingship I refuse also his 
priesthood and his prophethood. Only as I bow at 
his feet and accept his kingly authority can I re- 
ceive his prophetic instruction and his priestly ab- 
solution. Here is the divine Trinity of offices in 



OBEDIENCE' THE TEST OF LOVE 73 

which Christ appears Prophet, Priest, and King. 
Rejecting him in the latter office, I cannot receive 
him in either of the former. Now, I hold that this 
is sound common sense. There is nothing, in one 
way, mysterious in religion. The supernatural, in 
a very real sense, is the natural. This principle of 
God's government in religious matters holds in all 
God's relations with men in every sphere of life. It 
must, I am sure, commend itself to every thoughtful 
hearer in this audience. It is in harmony with a 
universal law. To enjoy health you must obey the 
laws of health. God bestows health along the line 
of recognized law ; and if you will run against that 
law God cannot give you the blessing which its ob- 
servance insures. The same is true in matters of 
intellectual attainment. You must follow the laws 
of intellectual growth, you must submit to these in- 
evitable conditions, if you are to receive the blessings 
of intellectual possessions. There can be no divorce 
between the condition and the blessing. In order to 
make progress in music, or painting, or any art, you 
must submit to the principles that underlie that art. 
Obedience is necessary to attainment. This we all 
undei stand. The soldier must obey, else he ceases to 
be a soldier. It will not do for him to set up his 
own authority. He must march in obedience to the 
word of the commander. This is the essential con- 
dition of discipline in an army and of success in war. 



74 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

Precisely so is it in religion. Nothing is love to God 
which does not shape itself into practical obedience. 
It is simply useless for you to indulge in the thought 
of love to God if you do not obey God. It is said 
that after a great battle the officers met in their tent 
and discussed the question as to who was the bravest 
soldier of the day. One said, " It was he who made 
a tremendous onset," another, "He who came into 
hand-to-hand conflict with the enemy and overcame." 
"No," said the commander; "the bravest soldier 
was he who had lifted his arm to strike, and when 
the sound of retreat was heard his arm paused in 
mid-air and he struck no blow. He was the bravest 
soldier to-day." 

Obedience Gives a Foretaste of Heaven. 

Love to God, then, is necessary to the highest en- 
joyment, both here and hereafter. It gives a fore- 
taste of heaven here and now. You have heaven 
in your souls as you sit in these pews, just in pro- 
portion as you have the love of God in your souls. 
That love makes heaven hereafter absolutely certain. 
There can be no heaven anywhere to the man who 
does not love God ; there can be no hell anywhere to 
the man who does love God. That man has heaven 
in his soul wherever he goes, whatever he does. If 
it were possible for a Christian man to be in perdi- 
tion, it would cease to be the place of torment ; it 



OBEDIENCE THE TEST OF LOVE. 75 

would immediately become for him a place of un- 
speakable bliss and glory. There was a time in my 
life when I sometimes thought God was arbitrary; 
possibly I thought him harsh in some of his dealings 
with men. A better understanding of those dealings 
convinced me, and must convince you, that God never 
condemned any man to everlasting punishment. 
Nowhere in the Book of God, nowhere in the records 
of eternity, nowhere in the providence of God has 
he ever condemned a man to hell. Men go them- 
selves; they go downward rather than upward. 
They stumble over God's word; they despise God's 
invitations; they stumble over Christ's cross; they 
turn a deaf ear to Christ's prayer. I say it rever- 
ently — God cannot stop them except he destroy the 
laws of freedom with which he has endowed them. 
If you charge God with your fate you show that you 
deserve your fate a thousand times over ; you show 
that you are false to your own conscience and to 
God's revelation. Since your infancy God has been 
wooing you to his arms and heart. You have 
turned a deaf ear ; you have despised the pleadings 
of his love. 

If all the wretched inhabitants of hell were to be 
admitted to heaven it would be no heaven to them 
while they continued to hate God. That hatred 
makes hell. There can be no heaven anywhere to a 
man who hates God. To shut up in the regions of 



76 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

despair men who hate God is a greater kindness to 
them than to admit them into his immediate pres- 
ence. Were yon to go to these wretched saloons, 
and to take all the people you can find there and 
bring them into the house of .God, they would be 
perfectly wretched. They would say, " Let us out ! 
We want the ribald song, the blasphemous oath, the 
intoxicating cup." Some of you have a foretaste of 
heaven in the place of prayer, but to those it would 
be a foretaste of hell. Put them into heaven, and 
they would be unspeakably miserable. What they 
need is not a change in external condition, but in 
heart, in life, in purpose, in all their relations to 
God. So I say, without fear of contradiction, that 
if a man loves God he has heaven everywhere. If a 
man hates him he can have heaven nowhere. 

Obedience Clearly Proves Love. 

But a man asks, " Can I know whether or not I love 
God?" Most assuredly you can know. We have 
the practical test which is the topic of my remarks 
this morning. It is the test of obedience. Do you 
obey God? If you constantly obey God, no matter 
how you feel for the moment, you love him. Right 
feeling will come with obedience. Men act quite 
too much by impulse. I wish sometimes that the 
word " feeling " were blotted out of our religious 
vocabulary. A man says he doesn't go to prayer- 



OBEDIENCE THE TEST OF LOVE. 77 

meeting, "because he doesn't feel like it." What 
has feeling to do with duty? We are saved by faith, 
not by feeling. Many a time a man goes into his 
office when he doesn't feel like doing his work. You 
can work yourself into right feeling. Often the 
literary man sits down when he has none of that 
ecstasy and bliss which come when mind and soul 
are filled with lofty thought. How often did Dickens 
sit down, seize his pen simply from a sense of duty, 
and drive it in cold blood for a time ! But soon the 
right feeling came, and soon joyous emotions would 
throb for utterance. Soon the words would run from 
his pen-point, until page after page would testify to 
the work of the morning. These principles apply 
with literal truth in the Christian life. Do your 
duty. Why should a man not bow to Jesus Christ? 
Why should you not say, while I am speaking, " I 
know that I am a sinner, bat I will trust Jesus Christ 
here and now" ? 

Cotfldn't you say that, man? Will you thus 
determine, woman, in the pew at this moment : 
" Here, O Christ, just as I am, I give myself to 
Thee" ? Then say, " I have done it ; I will never 
take it back; I will go out into yonder street Christ's 
man, Christ's woman ; I will do my duty, and con- 
fess him before the whole world." So obeying 
Christ, be assured that peace and all right feeling 
will come into your soul ; and you shall know by 



78 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

a blessed experience that you are truly Christ's 
child. 

I am glad of this practical test which I have given 
you this morning. I wanted to talk to you in a plain 
way. I know many often ask the question, " Do I 
love the Lord or not?" I know it often gives them 
anxious thought. Obedience to his commands an- 
swers the question. Our own wills must be turned 
into sympathy with Christ's ; running in parallel lines 
with Christ's there will be no cross. This submission 
is the significance of baptism : buried with Christ. 
The old man as dead is to be buried ; the new man 
rises to walk in a new life. Blessed symbol ! Glo- 
rious obedience ! Divine Redeemer, help us to show 
that we love thee by keeping all thy command- 
ments ! 



VI. 

Sbe Bible anfc tbe Ibigber Criticism. 

"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.' 1 '' — 1 Thess. 
v. 21. 

THE apostle here exhorts us to submit all forms 
of faith to their appropriate test. The word 
which is translated prove is a very strong expres- 
sion ; it literally means to test by the art of the as- 
sayer ; it is the word which would be applied to the 
testing of metals or similar substances. The apostle 
warns the Thessalonians against receiving state- 
ments regarding religious truth on mere assertion. 
They are exhorted to apply fitting tests, and then to 
reject what is false and to adopt what is true. The 
same exhortation is appropriate still. God makes a 
direct appeal to our reason in regard to the subjects 
of our faith. Reason and revelation, when both are 
properly understood, are not contradictory. God 
through the prophet Isaiah distinctly says : " Come 
now, and let us reason together." The decisions of 

synods and councils are not necessarily authoritative. 

79 



80 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

Christianity always and everywhere is the friend 
of free and fair inquiry. But we must remember 
that it is quite as important to hold fast good things 
as it is to prove all things. 

The Church of Christ is to expect criticism. She 
must not shrink from it; indeed, she cannot help 
challenging it. She is a city set on a hill. The 
Church does not fear criticism ; she fears nothing 
but error and sin. Truth seeks the light, comes to 
the light, rejoices in the light. Error loves dark- 
ness, grows in darkness, and reluctantly comes into 
the light, which at once reveals and rebukes its de- 
formity. A true Christianity knows that correct 
knowledge, and not gross ignorance, is the mother 
of genuine devotion. A true Christianity welcomes 
truth from whatever quarter it comes and. by what- 
ever messenger it is brought. A true Christianity 
cares more for truth than for the opinions of the 
greatest of men; she says evermore, as Jesus said 
to those who asked, "Master, where dwellest thou?" 
and as Philip said to Nathanael, who thought no 
good thing could come out of Nazareth, " Come and 
see." She submits all her premises, processes, and 
conclusions to the full sunlight of the most critical 
examination. She has absolutely nothing to conceal. 
In the encaustic tiling at the entrance to his home, 
Lord Tennyson, we are told, has the words, " Truth 
against the world. " A true Christianity will write 



THE BIBLE AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM. 81 

•these words at the head of every sermon, on the first 
page of every book, and on the heart of every disci- 
ple. In this spirit the Church ought to go forth to 
meet her critics. Criticism is the act or art of judg- 
ing ; the . judgment is not necessarily unfavorable, 
lut even when unfavorable the Church, as the child 
and champion of truth, will go forward fearlessly 
and even joyfully to meet it. 

Our knowledge of the Bible is necessarily progres- 
sive. It is evermore true that there is more light to 
spring forth from the Word of God. The Bible as 
a revelation of an infinite God must evermore be 
beyond the full comprehension of finite men. We 
can apprehend its truths; we cannot comprehend 
them in all their significance. Each generation may 
be expected to make advances in the apprehension 
of the Bible over the preceding generation. What 
science has absolutely proved is a truth of God in its 
sphere as really as what revelation has affirmed. 
God is one; truth is one. God cannot contradict 
himself. What he has taught in Genesis must 
harmonize with what he has taught in geology, 
when both are rightly interpreted. Between a true 
science and a divine revelation there must be entire 
harmony. Our contention is only against a science 
falsely so called. Science and philosophy are neces- 
sary factors in all religious thought. Theologians 
who speak derogatively of the influences of philoso- 



82 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

phy really only oppose one system, of philosophy 
against another. This scientific spirit is in the at- 
mosphere to-day, and can neither be denied nor de- 
spised. A true theologian will not attempt to do the 
one nor the other. As well might he resist the law 
of gravitation, or the movings of the tide. But our 
holy religion is never the enemy of truth wherever 
found. A true science is the handmaid of Christi- 
anity; it is the minister of truth and God. We 
need have no fear of the "higher criticism," as it has 
been called. Whatever discovers and declares truth 
is of God, and is to be welcomed by his Church. 
We are only concerned to know that this or any 
other form of criticism does really discover and de- 
clare the truth. That is the whole matter regarding 
which we should be concerned. We welcome all 
forms of right examination. The Bible asks no 
favors and fears no appropriate tests. Reason and 
conscience have their sphere of authority ; but reve- 
lation is higher than either or both. Where Script- 
ure plainly speaks, human reason must bow in 
submission. God as the revealer and the supreme 
source of authority is back of the revelation which 
is the channel of that authority. 

The Character of the Examen'ation. 

The Bible should be studied on scientific prin- 
ciples. These principles now dominate in other 



THE BIBLE AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM. 83 

departments of inquiry, and have their sphere also 
as applied to the Bible. All investigation of the 
Bible should bear in mind what is its supreme object 
and design. Many critics greatly err at this point; 
they forget the real object of divine revelation. The 
Bible is not intended to be a treatise on philosophy, 
science, or history ; it is not a text-book on astron- 
omy, geology, chemistry, botany, or geography; it 
is not an encyclopaedia or universal dictionary. It 
does allude to these subjects, and that with an accu- 
racy, eloquence, and beauty that are simply surpris- 
ing. Its avoidance of the dangers into which hea- 
then cosmologies have fallen is inexplicable if we 
deny its divine inspiration ; the cosmogony of Moses 
receives the confirmation of the science of our 
own century. It has been well said that, "there 
is in the book of Psalms alone more loving descrip- 
tions of nature than in all Greek and Roman 
literature;" and yet such descriptions and allu- 
sions are merely incidental. Some of these, how- 
ever, anticipate many of the discoveries of science. 
The great design of the Bible is to teach religious 
truth; it is to supply man's religious necessities. 
This design is ever paramount. Baronius long ago 
said: "The Scriptures were given to teach men 
how to rise to heaven, not how the heavens were 
made." Forgetting these simple facts, ignorant 
scientists and equally ignorant ecclesiastics have 



84 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

waged a foolish warfare. As a result astronomy, 
geology, and many other sciences have had to fight 
their way against the opposition of priests, cardinals, 
and popes. Thank God ! a brighter day has dawned. 
We are learning that all lovers of truth are in many 
senses pupils in the one school — the school of Christ, 
which is the noblest university. The Bible is de- 
signed to reveal God and man in their mutual rela- 
tions; it declares man's religious necessities and re- 
veals the divine provision for those necessities. It 
makes allusion to nations only as they stood related 
to the development of this spiritual purpose. It thus 
comes to pass that what Voltaire called an " insignifi- 
cant Syrian tribe " fills so large a space on the in- 
spired page; that Egypt is scarcely mentioned be- 
tween the time of Moses and Solomon ; that Assyria, 
after a single passage in the Book of Genesis, is 
passed over in silence for fifteen hundred years ! 

Many criticise the Bible because it is not, and 
never proposed to be, what they have imagined it 
ought to be. It is not a universal encyclopaedia, 
although it is wonderfully encyclopaedic ; not a uni- 
versal history, although it is the oldest and noblest 
history. Within its own sphere it is authoritative 
and infallible. To insist upon its historical and sci- 
entific inerrancy is to mistake its true design and 
controlling purpose. We do not admit its errancy 
as many have affirmed it ; but neither ought we to 



THE BIBLE AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM 85 

allow ourselves to believe that if erranc}^, historical 
or scientific, can be proved, the Bible is therefore 
errant and unauthoritative on religious subjects. 
Those who say that if an error is found in the date 
of some ancient king or kingdom, or in the number 
engaged or killed in some ancient battle, therefore 
we must give up the inspiration of the Bible and 
the divinity of the Lord, are guilty of illogical rea- 
soning and of a foolish surrender to the foes of reve- 
lation. They ought not to stake the defence of the 
citadel on maintaining an unimportant outpost. 
Inharmony in the details of testimony in our courts 
is not construed by judges and juries as necessarily a 
contradiction of the main fact, if on that point the 
witnesses harmonize. I have heard officers who 
were in the battle of Gettysburg contradict one an- 
other regarding some of the details of that historic 
conflict; but this discrepancy regarding unimportant 
facts would surely not justify a man in affirming 
that there never was a battle of Gettysburg. The 
Bible is absolutely authoritative on matters of our 
spiritual life and faith. This is its chosen sphere; 
this is its divine design. We do not admit that 
important errors have yet been proved either of an 
historical or scientific kind. On this point, " a bill of 
particulars" is properly demanded of those who make 
the affirmation. They wisely refrain from meeting 
this demand ; their modesty at this point is surpris- 



86 DIVINE BALUSTRADES 

ingly in contrast with their omniscience at many other 
points. We simply affirm that all allusions in the 
Bible to matters of that kind are merely incidental, 
and do not touch nor affect the main purpose of the 
revelation. 

The critic of the Bible should be sympathetic. This 
demand is scientific. No man can appreciate 
the hills except he have mountains in his brain ; no 
man can enjoy the sea except he have oceans in his 
soul ' no man can judge music except his training 
and nature be musical. The mathematician who 
asked, after reading Milton's "Paradise Lost," 
"What does that prove?" was an utterly incompe- 
tent judge of that immortal epic. Sir Isaac Newton 
was right when he said to Dr. Halley, " When you 
speak about astronomy or mathematics, I am glad 
to hear you, for you have studied and you understand 
these subjects ; but you should not talk of Christian- 
ity, for you have not studied it." Dr. Halley was a 
competent witness on science, but utterly incompe- 
tent on matters of religion. To demand that critics 
of the Bible shall be sympathetic is to demand only 
that which we require in critics of science, philoso- 
phy, or aesthetics. The cold-hearted, unsympa- 
thetic, irreligious critic of the Bible is a monstrosity. 
He is no more fitted to judge of its truths than a 
deaf man is to pronounce on music, or a blind man 
on the merits of a painting. 



THE BIBLE AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM. 87 

We have a right also to demand that all inves- 
tigations of the Bible shall be practical — shall be 
affirmative or constructive, and not merely negative 
or destructive. The Higher Criticism might fairly 
be called general criticism. It discusses not merely 
the text, but its general relations , its relations to the 
chapter in which it is found, to the book of which it 
is a part, to the times to which it is referred, and to 
its entire environment. " It is, " as Professor Stevens, 
of Rochester, has recently said, " history engaged in 
verifying the facts of the past." Mere textual criti- 
cism is lower criticism ; but the investigation which 
takes up a book, its history, its structure, its creden- 
tials, this is called the Higher Criticism. When 
this kind of examination is applied to the Bible, it 
is properly called "Biblical Criticism." Let no one 
fear such criticism, when conducted in the spirit 
which we have already approved. Let no one de- 
nounce men inspired by this spirit and working for 
the discovery of truth; let no one depreciate the 
results secured, nor unfairly oppose the methods 
employed. If the investigation be in a humble and 
candid spirit, it will but reflect an additional honor 
on God and his word. It will, without doubt, when 
so conducted, give fairer conceptions alike of the 
Bible and its divine Author. If it shall destroy 
some of the unsightly scaffolds which traditional 
interpretations and which some human creeds and 



88 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

confessions have erected about the majestic temple 
of truth, marring its symmetry and robbing it of 
its divine glory, we shall have cause to rejoice. The 
Word of our God shall stand forever : that is as cer- 
tain as that God lives and reigns. 

Moses and His Critics. 

Many men have entered the arena to tilt against 
Moses and the Pentateuch. Pharaoh strove 
against Moses, and he sank like lead into the Red 
Sea. Jannes and Jambres, the Egyptian ma- 
gicians, "withstood Moses," and they are named 
only to show their defeat and humiliation. It 
has been well said that the Bible is like a cube; 
when it is overturned, as its foes have thought, 
it is as high as before. The great scholars of the 
early centuries attempted to overthrow Christianity 
and the Bible ; but the names of most of them are 
now utterly forgotten, except as they stand in some 
way related to the Bible which they vainly attempted 
to overthrow. Lucian, Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian 
the Apostate were the leaders of the opposition to 
Christ and his Church in their respective genera- 
tions. Porphyry was, without doubt, one of the most 
brilliant opponents which Christianity has ever had. 
He was a peerless heathen polemic. He moved 
boldly into " the arena ; he was resolved to dethrone 
Jesus Christ. He anticipated many of the critical 



THE BIBLE AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM. 89 

methods which are common in our day ; but these 
men would be utterly forgotten were it not that they 
linked their names, even in opposition, with that 
Name which is above every name. Jesus Christ is 
King. From his watch-tower in the heavens he 
rules this world. His pierced hand is on the helm 
of the universe. Men have, in their own opinion, 
been constantly engaged in overthrowing the Bible ; 
but the work has to be constantly repeated. Never 
did any other book have such vitality. It constantly 
confronts its foes with new elements of power. It 
never was mightier than it is to-day. It has over- 
thrown many forms of heathenism, and is now mov- 
ing forward with head elate and step triumphant to 
the conquest of the world. 

The critics have long been giving their opinion on 
Moses. It would be interesting to have the opinion 
of Moses on some of his critics. Those who con- 
fronted Moses alive, whether in the court of Pha- 
raoh, on the field of battle, or in the councils of nations, 
found him a foeman worthy of their steel. Were he 
not dead his critics would be likely to speak more 
modestly of their own attainments, and more wisely 
of his achievements. 

Mere destructive criticism is worthy of but little 
respect. In no other sphere can the minimum of 
talent so certainly secure the maximum of notice. 
A child or an idiot with a knife or a hammer, let 



90 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

loose in a gallery of paintings or a hall of .statuary, 
can destroy more in an hour than Angelo or Raphael 
could create in a lifetime. Destructive criticism 
requires but little ability and has but little utility. 
At times it may have a mission. It may awaken 
curiosity ; it may evoke inquiry. Many a minister 
can attract no attention by earnestly expounding the 
Gospel ; but the same man by attacking the Gospel 
and denouncing recognized beliefs will have a brief 
notoriety in the secular and religious press. By once 
hurling a hymn-book from his pulpit at the windows 
of his church, a pastor will attract more notice than 
by ordinary preaching for a score of years. But 
mere destruction is unworthy the ambition of a noble 
man and the attainments of a broad scholar. God 
often overrules destructive work, however, for the 
establishment of his truth. The opposition of Por- 
phyry in his day called into the arena many de- 
fenders of Christ and his Gospel. The attacks upon 
Christianity in our day have only served to show 
the solidity of its deep foundations. Let no believer 
be alarmed ; let no one feel obliged to steady the ark 
of God ; God will care for his Word and his work. 
The business of the pulpit is to preach the truth and 
not to apologize for God and the Bible. A pastor is 
engaged in a sorry labor when he is simply unset- 
tling the beliefs of men, and robbing the Bible of its 
authority and beauty. A man of this character 



THE BIBLE AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM. 91 

may have some sphere of usefulness, but it is cer- 
tainly not in the pulpit or church of God. 

What Has this Criticism Done? 

It is fair to ask what the Higher Criticism has 
accomplished. This question we have a right to 
ask. Once more the Bible is on trial. Many of 
those who sought its life, as Ave have already said, 
are dead, as were those who sought the life of the 
Child Jesus ; but other opponents have arisen in their 
place. What really has the Higher Criticism ac- 
complished? It has shown, we will admit, that 
Moses did not write all the Pentateuch. But who, 
of any intelligence, ever believed that he did? Cer- 
tainly no reasonable student could suppose that he 
wrote the account of his own death. The Higher Crit- 
icism has shown, we will admit, that in the writing 
of the Pentateuch various documents were employed. 
But the critics contradict themselves constantly as 
to the points of union and cleavage in these docu- 
ments. One might, before passing judgment on 
their work, wait until they had gotten through with 
destroying one another ; for the higher critics of one 
generation spend much of their time in denouncing 
their brethren of a preceding generation. All the 
rest of us might be contented to wait until they are 
through with one another, and then we might gather 
up the fragments of critics and criticisms which 



92 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

may remain; but we need not take refuge behind 
these warring critics. Surely no intelligent reader, 
even though he were not a higher critic, doubts or 
doubted that various documents entered into the 
preparation of the Pentateuch. Surely we may give 
Moses credit for being a man of common sense ; his 
wonderful achievements entitle him, even in the 
judgment of his harshest critics, to at least this much 
praise. Even an average historian would take ad- 
vantage of documents and annals to which he had 
access in preparing his histoiy. Hume, Macaulay, 
Motley, Bancroft did likewise; so also do the his- 
torians of our day. We could name a widely known 
American ecclesiastical historian who not only has 
the assistance of other writings, but, it is said, of 
many writers in preparing his volumes on the his- 
tory of the Church. They are not less his because 
of this method of preparation. Representative 
higher critics admit that the Pentateuch is written 
under the guidance and influence of Moses. More 
we do not need; more we neither claim nor de- 
sire. It is, in a special and beautiful sense, a glori- 
ous and divine mosaic. What if the accounts given 
of creation are but a series of grand panoramic 
views? They may be none the less true. We know 
that the language is not scientific but scenic ; that it 
is not philosophic but optic, as Dr. Boardman has 
suggested. Is it not, therefore, the more natural 



THE BIBLE AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM 93 

and accurate? We have no difficulty with the con- 
ception that in these glowing chapters we have un- 
rolled before us. as before Moses, successive events 
in great spiritual visions. We did not need the 
wisdom of the latter-day higher critics to teach us 
these acknowledged truths. They have told us that 
Isaiah did not write all the book which bears his 
name — that there were at least two Isaiahs. Perhaps 
they are right , perhaps they are not. Internal evi- 
dence is not conclusive. We cannot decide such 
questions in the case of Junius and others of a com- 
paratively recent date. The matter is not important. 
Personally, I should be glad to know that there were 
twenty-two Isaiahs instead of two. He is exactly 
the kind of man whom we should like to see greatly 
multiplied. Recent criticism may yet shed some 
light on the interpretation of the Song of Solomon 
and on predictive prophecy , but as yet it has given 
us an uncertain twilight. 

Has this criticism deepened the piety of the 
Church? Has it quickened its zeal? Has it led to 
a greater consecration to work and a stronger desire 
to live for the glory of Christ and the salvation of 
men? No positive answer can yet be given to these 
questions ; but this criticism has done good just so 
far as it has discovered truth ; but not when it has 
simply dealt in mere destructive criticism, and has 
forgotten that divine charity, which "vaunteth not 



94 DIVINE BALUSTRADES 

itself,' and u is not puffed up." The true position for 
the Church to take is that of appreciation of truth 
wherever found, and by whatsoever messenger 
brought: that of patient waiting until undigested 
theories are verified and vain speculations are con- 
clusively proved. It is needless to oppose unverified 
theories ; and it is wicked to cling to old prejudices 
when new truths are proved. What we want is 
neither the old theology, nor the new in itself, but 
the true theology. God will not leave us in doubt. 
His word is not a system of cunningly devised fables. 
It is my firm conviction that the Higher Criticism 
has not thus far achieved practical results sufficient 
to justify its exaggerated claims ; neither has it so 
opposed truths previously held as to justify the oppo- 
sition of some conservative and orthodox theologians. 
It is itself on trial. Let us calmly wait; let us be 
open, frank, and fair; let us not denounce the mo- 
tives of earnest scholars who, with us, are seeking 
after truth. 

There are great basal truths which must forever 
abide. Human sin and sorrow are terrific facts. 
The birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus 
Christ are eternal verities. There is a science of 
salvation. God's sovereign and eternal love, God's 
gracious Fatherhood and forgiving mercy are eternal 
verities. Christ lives, and he himself said, in his 
matchless intercessory prayer, " This is life eternal, 



THE BIBLE AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM. 95 

that they might know thee the only true God, and 
Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." With un- 
daunted heart we stand beside the Cross to-day. In 
this sign we shall conquer the world , that Cross is 
still the power and the wisdom of God ; it is still the 
mightiest magnet to draw men from self and sin to 
holiness and heaven. We want the old Gospel, old 
as eternity and new as the last rays which flooded 
the earth with the light and glory of heaven. 
Nothing but the bread of heaven can feed the 
hungry soul; nothing but the blessed balm of 
Gilead can heal the heart's sorrow. Blessed be 
God, his Gospel will never lose its power until 
Satan is crushed beneath our feet and Christ is wor- 
shipped as Lord over all, blessed forever. 



VII. 

Zbe "Witb Cbrists." 

THE relation between Christ and his people is 
most intimate and tender. The resources of 
language are exhausted in the attempt to describe 
and emphasize it. Figure after figure, drawn from 
every department of nature and experience, is used 
to set forth this relation. Our Lord said : " Because 
I live, ye shall live also ;" thus he shows the nearness 
and vitality of the union between him and his 
people. He also calls himself the vine, and describes 
them as the branches in illustration of the same 
thought. He also says : " If a man love me he will 
keep my words ; and my Father will love him, and we 
will cpme unto him and make our abode with him." 
This is wonderful language. Observe the divine 
plural. The thought of this relationship fills us with 
awe ; it sets forth the marvellous condescension of 
God, and it ought to move every heart with deepest 
gratitude and holiest love. Our Lord also says : " I in 
them, and thou in me, that they may be made per- 
fect in one." The apostle Paul expresses the same 

96 



THE "WITH CHRISTS." 97 

thought when he says : " For if we be dead with him, 
we shall also live with him ; if we suffer, we shall 
also reign with him. " Kinship with Christ in suffer- 
ings implies partnership with him in triumphs. Just 
before leaving the disciples he said : " Where I am 
there ye may be also, " and afterward at the right hand 
of God his feelings and purposes are still the same, 
for from that exalted height he said : " To him that 
overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, 
even as I also overcame, and am set down with my 
Father in his throne." 

My purpose this morning is to describe and illus- 
trate some of these relationships as they are presented 
to us in the epistles. I shall present, in a logical 
rather than in an historical order, the passages in 
which the expression " with Christ " is found ; but 
passages containing other expressions, although re- 
lating to Christ, are omitted. 

1. " Crucified with Christ." — Gal. ii. 20. 

Scripture teaches us in many places that Christ 
literally died for us on the cross. The apostle Paul 
in the previous verse tells us that he himself was 
dead to the law, but alive to God. In the verse be- 
fore us he explains what he means by that statement. 
We know that only the two robbers were literally 
crucified with Christ; but the apostle Paul was 
crucified with him in the sense of dying with him to 



98 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

sin and its sway. His old nature was crucified ; he 
became dead to the world, to the law, and to sin; he 
was as dead to the ambitions, pomps and charms of 
the world as if he had been actually crucified. His 
life was identified with that of his Lord, so that he 
could properly speak of himself as crucified with 
him. The death of Christ on the cress for him made 
him dead to worldly things and evil passions. His 
highest glory now was to be in all things like his 
Master. He longed to be bound to him in the closest 
fellowship. He was willing to share in all respects 
the shame and ignominy of his Lord's crucifixion. It 
was his ambition to have fellowship with Christ in 
his sufferings, and to be made conformable unto his 
death. He elsewhere expresses a strong desire to 
know Christ and the power of his resurrection, as 
well as the fellowship of his sufferings ; but although 
thus dead to sin, he teaches us in the passage before 
us that Christ lived in him and that he himself lived 
by the faith of the Son of God. The true Christian's 
death to sin is often a real crucifixion ; it is lingering, 
painful and ignominious. But he will not come down 
from his cross until he can say to every sinful ten- 
dency," It is finished." The true Christian is a won- 
derful paradox. He is dead, and yet he is alive; he 
lives in the flesh, and yet he lives by faith; he lives 
a self -life, and yet his is a true Christ-life. Out of 
the dead enemy to Christ has come the living, lov- 



THE " WITH CHRISTS. " 99 

ing, laboring servant of Christ. This is a blessed 
crucifixion ; this is an honored fellowship ; this is a 
glorious exaltation. God grant that we may all be 
crucified with Christ, and that we may live in, for 
and with Christ. 

2. " Dead with Christ." — Romans vi. 8. 

If we are crucified with Christ we become dead 
with Christ, as is affirmed in the passage now before 
us. As Christ was dead in the grave, so we are to 
be dead to self and sin. This thought carries us 
back to the third and fourth verses of this same 
chapter in Romans. There we learn that we are 
baptized into the likeness of Christ's death. The 
apostle's words are: "We are buried with him by 
baptism into death." For a time Christ lay in the 
tomb hidden from sight ; then he rose triumphant 
from the grave. So the believer, in token of his 
death to sin, is hidden for a time in the watery 
grave ; then he rises to walk with Christ in newness of 
life. Having been thus dead and buried with him 
the apostle says : " We believe that we shall also live 
with him" — live with him here and now, and live 
with him torever hereafter. The primary reference 
is probably to the present rather than to the future 
life. As Christ was raised trom death, so we were 
raised from the death of sin to a life of holy service ; 
we are dead men restored to life^ we are even now 



100 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

both dead and alive. Baptism thus becomes pro- 
foundly significant ; it is eminently beautiful and in- 
structive in its symbolism. How glorious would be 
the Christian faith if all its professors were thus 
dead to sin and alive to God ! How truly blessed the 
baptized would be ! Let us strive to make this our 
happy experience. When that experience is attained 
our spiritual death and resurrection will be the 
promise and prophecy of that literal death in the Lord 
which the voice from heaven has pronounced to be 
blessed. The Lord, who sanctified the waters of 
baptism, has also glorified the tomb of the dead, rob- 
bing it of its gloom and lighting it with a heavenly 
radiance. 

3. "Hath quickened us together with Christ.' 11 — Eph ii. 5. 

We who were dead are quickened, are made alive 
again, We are saved from the death of sin and we 
have received the life of Christ. The relation be- 
tween Christ and his people is such that his resurrec- 
tion from the grave included our resurrection to 
spiritual life. As death locks up the senses and seals 
the powers, grace unlocks and opens them to the 
light and life of truth and Christ. This is the 
Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. It is 
he that bath quickened us, he that hath raised u? up 
together, he that hath made us to sit together m 
heavenly places in Christ Jesus. It is by grace that 



THE "WITH CHRISTS." 101 

we are saved. Our salvation is possible because 
God is rich in mere}' and hath loved us with an ever- 
lasting love. His love was manifested toward us 
even while we were sinners. All our spiritual bless- 
ings flow from our union with Christ. If a man be 
not quickened together with Christ he is still dead in 
trespasses and sins; he is a child of wrath even as 
others. These are very solemn words. Their teach- 
ing ought not to be misunderstood by us. Have you 
felt the pulsation of this new life throbbing in your 
souls? If not, you are still among the dead. Awake, 
thou that sleepest ; and arise from the dead, and Christ 
shall give you light. Become to-day, I beseech you, 
children of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ, 
and then shall you be inheritors of eternal life. 

4. "Risen with Christ.'" — Col. iii. 1. 

In the second chapter and 20th verse of this epistle 
we are taught that we are dead with Christ, but 
when, as we have already seen, we become quickened 
together with Christ, we must leave the tomb. The 
grave is not the place for living men. When life 
once more comes into the soul, the dark and noisome 
grave is to be abandoned. We are raised from the 
grave of sin to live a life of holiness. He now lives 
in heaven, so we in him should now live for heaven ; 
as he is at the right hand of God, the union between 
him and his people is such that their affections must 



102 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 



be set on him and on heavenly things ; not on the 
things of this earth, its houses and lands, its honors 
and pleasures, its ambitions and achievements, but 
on heaven and heavenly things. Nothing short of 
heavenly things can be worthy of the supreme affec- 
tion of an immortal and redeemed soul. The Chris- 
tian who finds his highest joy on earth debases his 
heavenly birth, dishonors his high calling, and im- 
perils his divine destiny. The child of earth may 
mind the things of earth; but the child of glory will 
be engrossed with the things of heaven. He is, 
while upon the earth, an eagle encaged ; his home is 
in the skies. At times he longs to plume his wings 
for a lofty flight. His treasure, like his crown, is in 
heaven where God is; it is laid up with Christ. 
These are precious truths. What manner of persons 
ought we to be in all holy conversation and godli- 
ness. All our joys and sorrows, all our trials and 
triumphs are but fitting us for the enjoyment of our 
glorious inheritance with Christ. 



5. "Hid with Christ in God. "— Col. iii. 3. 

The Christian life abounds in apparent contradic- 
tions and in startling paradoxes. We are poor, yet 
making many rich; we are sorrowing, yet always 
rejoicing; we are daily dying, yet still live. The 
apostle Paul affirms that he lives, and immediately 
adds, " Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. " So here 



THE "WITH CHRISTS." 103 

he says to the Colossians, "Ye are dead," and then 
adds, "Your life is hid with Christ in God." Of 
course, he uses these familiar words in varying senses. 
The death mentioned is that of the lower and earthly 
nature; the life is that of the higher, nobler and 
diviner nature. All life is born of death. An 
American poet has sung : 

"Life evermore is fed by death, 
In earth and sea and sky ; 
And, that a rose may breathe its breath, 
Something must die." 

Our true life, like a treasure of greatest value, is 
hidden ; it is safely deposited with Christ in heaven 
where God our Father is. It is too valuable to be 
entrusted to our keeping ; a jewel of such inestimable 
worth might be taken from us if committed to our 
care. There is wonderful sweetness in the thought 
of life thus hidden with Christ. There is here a 
nestling, trusting and blessed tenderness; there is 
here a sublime security ; there is here a divine in- 
spiration. Blessed, thrice blessed, is that man who 
can say that his life is "hid with Christ in God." 

6. "Joint heirs with Christ." — Romans, viii. 17. 

Earlier in this chapter our attention is directed 
to the glorious doctrine of adoption. We show 
that we are truly adopted of God, when we are 
led by the Spirit of God. When so led we are not 



104 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

simply followers, disciples, or friends; but we are 
the children of God. The spirit of bondage is utterly 
gone ; we are no longer slaves, but sons. As children 
rejoicing in our relationship with God, we cry, 
Abba, Father. We are then heirs of God to an in- 
heritance which he will confer on his children both 
here and hereafter ; but we are more than " heirs of 
God," we are " joint heirs with Christ." Christ is 
pre-eminently the Son of God ; and all true Christians 
are so united to him that they become partakers in 
his glories and sharers in his possessions. He is 
God's Son by nature; they are God's sons by adop- 
tion, but in both cases the idea of sonship inheres. 
We are the members; he is the head. Every crown 
placed on his brow surrounds our heads with reflected 
splendor. Surely no Christian ought to forget his 
heavenly birth and his glorious destiny. We ought 
to live above the world. Our heads should be among 
the stars. This world ought to lose its hold upon 
those who are so honored of God and so dowered 
with heavenly glory. 

7. Christians are " to be with Christ. " — Phil. i. 23. 

The apostle Paul appears before us here as a 
greatly perplexed man. He is in a strait, but it is 
a blessed strait. We read of David being in a 
strait between three sad possibilities — sword, fam- 
ine, and pestilence; but, as it has been well said, 



THE "WITH CHRISTS." 105 

we find Paul here in a strait between two bless- 
ings — living with Christ on earth, or being with 
Christ in glory. Dr. Adam Clarke and other com- 
mentators have called attention to the fact that the 
metaphor here employed is suggested by a ship lying 
at anchor. The commander of the vessel is in a 
foreign port. He feels a strong desire to set sail, as 
the word here used implies, and get to his own 
country and family ; but this desire is offset by the 
conviction that the general interest of the voyage 
may be best subserved by a longer stay in the port 
where his vessel now rides. He is not in a dock, he 
is not aground, but rides at anchor, and may at any 
hour be gone. Strong winds are already blowing 
upon his vessel, which, were it free, would soon drive 
it out to sea. Such was the condition of the apostle. 
Strong cables of love bound his heart to the Philip- 
pians, and yet heavenly influences were moving him 
as a gale blows upon a vessel. He was not at home, 
but in a foreign land on his Master's business. He 
wishes to return; he rides at anchor. He is only 
awaiting further orders ; but in any case he will do 
his full duty. Sick and sorrrowful, weary of the 
world and its sin, he had a desire to slip the cable, or 
draw in the anchor, and sail away to his heavenly 
home ; but he would not allow misanthropy or per- 
sonal comfort to prevent him from doing his duty to 
God and to man. He was willing to bear physical 



106 DIVIXE BALUSTRADES. 

pain, if he could thus serve the church and honor his 
Lord. In his thought death was not a sleep, not a 
period of unconsciousness. To depart was to be at 
once with Christ, and to be with Christ was heaven. 
The difference between a Christian and a man of the 
world is this love for and desire to be with Christ. 
Mere willingness to die is no evidence that one is a 
Christian. Pure selfishness may sometimes lead 
men to wish to throw off all earthly care and sorrow ; 
but a true believer looks upon heaven as giving the 
opportunity to be with Christ as he cannot be upon 
the earth. To the apostle Paul this fellowship was 
far better than any earthly friendship. O noble 
apostle! blessed strait! May the spirit of the 
matchless Paul in his complete submission to the will 
of God, whether for life and service here, or for rest 
and glory hereafter, be the dominant spirit in our 
lives ! 

8. "Reigned with CJirist."—REY. xx. 4. 

We began with the cross and the grave, we have 
now reached the crown and the throne. There is not 
time to enter now into the full discussion which the 
present passage might justify. Perhaps the refer- 
ence is to the martyred and glorified dead. Certainly 
a millennial age of great power and glory is here 
suggested. The controlling influences of the world 
are under the direction of Christ and his Church. All 



THE "WITH CHRISTS." 107 

the forces of government and all the influences of so- 
cial life are in harmony with the Spirit and Church 
of the Lord. This condition is the opposite of that 
which now exists ; now the foes of Christ are often 
in the seats of power ; now right is often on the cross 
and wrong on the throne ; but the earth shall yet be 
" filled with the knowledge of God ; " truth shall 
yet triumph and righteousness and peace prevail; 
our present hopes shall then be a glorious reality and 
our present faith blessed sight. The promise of 
Christ will then be fulfilled ; those who have shared 
his cross shall then be with him on the throne. 
Elsewhere in this book our blessed Lord distinctly 
promises that those who should overcome should sit 
down with him on his throne. Christ's throne is 
large enough for all his people. He carries us at 
the last in the " overcomeths" of Revelation to his 
temple and to his throne. We are, as God's true 
children, candidates for crowns and thrones. Our 
Lord had prayed, "Father, I will that they also, 
whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am." 
Before such a promise and prayer reason staggers 
and imagination reels. This highest place is within 
the reach of the lowest child of Adam. Farther we 
cannot go ; more than this even God can neither say 
nor do. In this promise the Eternal exhausts him- 
self. The thought of this glory is overwhelming. 
To lie at Jesus' feet would be heaven ; to see " the 



108 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 



King in his beauty," even at a great distance, would 
be heaven. But to sit on his throne — it is too much ; 
we have no thought to conceive, far less language to 
express this indescribable honor. Christ so loves us 
that he longs for us to be by his side ; he longs to 
show us his glory. Soldiers of the cross, the victory 
shall be yours. Is the oonflict severe? Are the ene- 
mies numerous and strong? Fear not, ye men of God, 
ye followers of the Lamb ; ye shall overcome every 
foe, through the blood of the Lamb. On the brow of 
the redeemed shall be placed the triple crown — the 
crown of righteousness, the crown of life, and the 
crown of glory. Who would not be a Christian? O 
men and women, submit now to the authority of 
Jesus Christ. Listen to the invitations of his love. 
See him as on the cross he dies for you. Be cruci- 
fied with him on that cross, be dead and buried with 
him in yonder grave; be quickened together with 
Christ ; be risen with Christ. Let your life be hid 
with Christ in God ; become joint heirs with Christ, 
and then you shall sit with him on his throne and 
reign with him for ever and ever. 



Tin. 
Doing ail to tbe <Slor\> of Goo. 

" Whether therefore ye cat or drink, or whatsoever ye do. 

do all to the glory of God."—i Cor. x. 31. 

THE Bible is an intensely practical book. It be- 
longs to all centuries and climes, to all forms 
of civilization and culture. It is a book of great 
principles rather than of specific rules. Our rela- 
tions with men and things change with every hour; 
it is, therefore, simply impossible for the Bible to give 
us rules sufficiently numerous and specific to guide 
our conduct by minute directions amid these chang- 
ing relations. Human law-makers, in their efforts to 
circumvent the inventive versatility of law-breakers, 
have so multiplied laws upon our statute-books that 
the laws touching some phases of crime are involved 
in almost inextricable confusion. On the basis of 
the teachings of the great Mahomet a code of laws 
numbering seventy-five thousand was compiled : and 

yet cases soon arose among the followers of the 

109 



110 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

prophet which did not come within the application 
of the letter of any one of these laws. 

The Bible gives broad and fundamental principles. 

"We have the help of the Spirit of all truth to ena- 
ble us rightly to understand and properly to apply 
these principles ; so that no seeker after truth need 
fall into error as to any practical duty. These grand 
principles are far-reaching and heart-searching. 
They furnish us with the spirit rather than the letter 
of rules for moral conduct. The inculcation of a 
right spirit is better than the enactment of a right 
law. For the letter may be obeyed while the spirit 
of the law is evaded. We are commanded to love 
God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves ; 
we are to follow the Golden Rule given by him 
who spake as never man spake. The spirit of these 
great principles penetrates every possible rela- 
tion in life ; it meets the master and his servant, the 
mistress and her maid ; it enters the counting-house 
and the workshop ; it confronts the lawyer and his 
client, the physician and his patient, the pastor and 
his people. Christ's Gospel stands far above the sys- 
tems of morality devised by human wisdom. Hea- 
then moralists gave precepts numerous and intricate ; 
but Christ gave a few great principles of universal 
application. 

The text is one of these great laws. It is exceed- 
ing broad ; it'sends its influence into every relation 



DOING ALL TO THE GLORY OF GOD. Ill 

of life. In the chapter from which it is taken the 
apostle Paul gives some rules relative to the eating 
of meats offered to idols ; and then sums up his in- 
structions in the all-comprehensive law of which the 
text is the formulation. By the glory of God 
we are to understand the honor which is paid him 
by his creatures; to glorify him, therefore, is to 
seek his honor in all the actions of our lives. The 
phrase has many applications in Scripture ; but the 
fundamental idea is the giving of God honor, whe- 
ther in praise, in prayer, or in a life of honesty, obe- 
dience, and purity. We are to glorify him in all 
the relations of life. 

God is to be glorified in our strictly religious du- 
ties. This seems to be almost an unnecessary state- 
ment. Religious duties, we may say, are for the 
express purpose of honoring God. All must admit, 
however, that there is much of self and sin often 
entering into our holiest duties. The thought is hu- 
miliating in the extreme that men instead of preach- 
ing Christ crucified may preach themselves glorified ; 
that instead of pouring out their hearts in penitent 
prayer, they lift them up, Pharisee-like, in thanks to 
God for their many virtues. Religious work in its 
loftiest aspects is constantly in danger of being re- 
garded as a trade, of being considered as a means of 
securing a comfortable living. Religion never made 
a hypocrite ; the want of it makes many. Men never 



112 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

counterfeit what is worthless ; when they counterfeit 
religion they commend it, although they condemn 
themselves for their want of it. In proportion as 
churches become financially and socially potent fac- 
tors in life, is the temptation to engage in religious 
duties from bad motives strong. Motives must be 
carefully watched. Benevolent contributions may be 
for our own glory rather than for God's. Our char- 
ity may cover a multitude of sins in another sense 
than that in which the apostle uses the phrase. Self 
must be crucified that God may be glorified. Our 
labor must not be for our own church or our own de- 
nomination as its inspiring motive ; these have their 
place, but Christ must have the first place. Self 
must be dethroned ; Christ must be enthroned. No 
idol must usurp his place ; to him our supreme love 
must be given. God forbid that in our religious work 
we should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus 
Christ! 

Glorifying God in Business Eelations. 

We are to glorify God in all our business relations. 
There is danger that we shall make an unwarrant- 
able distinction between our business engagements 
and our religious obligations. They do not belong to 
different spheres of duty. We too often act as if Sun- 
days and churches belong to God, and week-days and 
business houses belong to the world, the flesh, and the 



DOING ALL TO iHE GLORY OF GOD. 113 

devil. There is a sense in which the house which 
has been consecrated to God is peculiarly sacred ; but 
there is also a sense in which every office and store 
may be consecrated to God. Religion is not for Sun- 
days and churches alone ; religion is for week-days 
and business houses as well. Religion sanctifies 
and glorifies every relation in life. If you cannot 
take your religion into your business, you must have 
a very bad business or a very poor religion. We all 
recognize the importance of what is known as "a 
call to the ministry ;" the man who refuses to heed 
this call does so at his peril. But it must not be for- 
gotten that every man is called to some form of min- 
istry in the kingdom of our Lord. 

The whole duty of every one everywhere is to glo- 
rify God ; the exalted privilege of every man is to en- 
joy God forever. No man is excused from this great 
obligation because he refuses to confess Christ ; this 
refusal but adds to his guilt. If you are engaged in 
an honest business for which you have qualifications 
and which you are conducting in a religious spirit, 
you may rest assured that God has called you into 
that business. By giving you ability to perform 
your work God has set you apart to that duty ; other 
business men may not have formally laid their hands 
upon your head giving you ordination to that ser- 
vice, but tacitly they have given their approval, and 
God has given his blessing. This conception of our 



114 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

daily calling exalts and glorifies it; it makes the 
lowliest duty radiant with the glory of the loftiest 
motive. This conception of life and duty converts 
every office and store, every workshop and factory, 
every parlor and kitchen into a sanctuary. It makes 
every counter and desk, every anvil and bench a 
pulpit from which men and women may preach the 
Gospel of Christ and in which they are to glorify 
God. We are to find our opportunity to serve God, 
not apart from, but in our daily vocation. Any 
other thought of secular service degrades it and dis- 
honors God. 

The apostle Paul often emphasizes this thought. 
We must emphasize it to-day ; we must repeat his 
words, " Servants, be obedient to them that are your 
masters, ... as unto Christ; not with eye-service 
as men pleasers ; but as the servants of Christ, doing 
the will of God from the heart ;" and " Whatsoever 
ye do in word or in deed, do all in the name of the 
Lord Jesus. ..." The needle of Dorcas served God 
as truly as does the pen of the recording angel. With 
thread in the garments of the poor it wrought an 
inscription more durable than if on brass or marble. 
Her eulogy will be read when the victories of Roman 
arms and the glory of Grecian arts are forgotten. 
The broom of the domestic servant may as truly be 
used for God as was the sceptre of David or Solomon. 
You may have the humblest home and yet it may 



DOING ALL TO THE GLORY OF GOD. 115 

be mora resplendent with the glory of an indwelling 
Christ than was the Temple in all its grandeur. The 
hod-carrier's ladder may be trodden by angels' feet 
as truly as was the ladder in the vision of Jacob. 
We are all familiar with Herbert's admirable ex- 
pression of this thought : 

" A servant with this clause 
Makes drudgery divine : 
Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, 
Makes that and the action fine. " 

How Men May Honor the Lord. 

Let us not think that we must do some great thing, 
as we call it, to honor God ; but let the little things 
of life be done with a great motive, and God will be 
honored. It is just as much the duty of some men 
to make money as it is the duty of other men to 
preach the Gospel. This thought is sublime — it is 
divine. There are business men in this city who 
are as consecrated to God as they are devoted to and 
successful in business. They are an honor to the 
Church of God and to the American Republic. For 
such men I have a profound regard ; they are true 
ministers of Jesus Christ. God multiply their num- 
ber! 

There are men in the legal and medical professions 
who use all their skill with this exalted motive. 
There are mechanics to whom belongs this high meed 



116 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

of praise; there are literary workers whose inspi- 
ration is the love of truth, and Christ. These are the 
men who bless and save the world. If our daily du- 
ties be done in this spirit the workman's apron will 
be as holy as the bishop's robe; every hearth will be, 
in its measure, an altar to God ; every home a house 
of God, and every meal a table of the Lord. Religion 
must make its power felt as truly in the marts of 
trade as in the sanctuary of God. Quaintly and 
truly has it been said : 

"In laborer's ballad oft more piety 
God finds, than in Te Deum's melody." 

If all these things be true, then no man in health 
has a right to give up business. He may have money 
enough for himself, but the Lord's cause needs and 
demands all that he can make and bestow. But is 
it possible for the merchant, the doctor, the artist, 
the editor, the lawyer, the laborer, the preacher, to 
have distinctly before his mind at every moment God's 
glory as the lofty motive of his life? Perhaps not. 
I start for Boston ; the train winds and turns ; at 
some particular moment I may not seem to be going 
in the right direction. But I know that this is the 
Boston train, and I am sure that it will reach that 
city. So let a man know, in the bottom or his soul, 
that the dominant purpose, the controlling motive of 
his life, is to glorify God, then let him throw him- 



DOING ALL TO THE GLORY OF GOD. 117 

self with the utmost enthusiasm into his work, and he 
will not fail of securing the end which thus he seeks. 
We have lost much in our daily duties, because we 
have not carried into them this religious spirit. 
Every obligation which rests upon a minister to 
glorify God in his work rests upon all the members 
of the Church to glorify him in their spheres of ac- 
tivity. 

But some of you business men are not Christians. 
You ought to be. Christ demands that all your 
powers be consecrated to his service; he demands 
that you recognize him as the head of your firm, 
he has a right to the proceeds of every transaction. 
You are guilty in the sight of high heaven if, in car- 
rying on your business, you fail to consult its true 
head. You are dishonest if you use funds which 
belong to another, and give him neither an ac- 
counting nor a recognition. Bring your business, 
your profession, your heart to-day to Jesus Christ. 
Give him yourself. Give him all you have and 
are. This is his right. This is your duty and 
privilege. 

God is to be Glorified in Our Social Life. 

In our social life God is to be glorified. This opens 
a wide domain. Here woman reigns as queen. Her 
power is regnant for good or evil. In these later 
daj^s Christian women have come into positions of 



118 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

prominence and power. It is a serious thing when 
women are found to glorify a bad fashion rather than 
to glorify God. Many a young man has blighted 
his life whose first wrong step was taken when the 
wine-cup was given him by some fair but foolish 
woman. So, too, many a man has been saved to 
Christ and the Church by the influences thrown 
around him in a Christian home. There are homes 
whose atmosphere is like that of heaven. Women, 
make the circle in which you move feel the power 
of Christian love. Young women, you especially ex- 
ercise a power greater than you know; as you love 
Christ, as you love all that Christ loves, use that 
power to glorify God and to draw all about you to 
higher and holier lives. 

Our recreations and amusements also should glo- 
rify God. Our whole lives may be a liturgy; every 
obligation an inspiration, and every duty a sacra- 
ment. No religious teacher can specify the amuse- 
ments in which a Christian may safely share. But 
there are general principles which we can apply. 
Whatever lessens one's influence as a Christian man, 
whatever keeps him from honestly and successfully 
confessing Christ, whatever interrupts his loving 
intercourse with his Saviour, whatever prevents him 
from glorifying God — that he must abandon, if it 
were dear as a right hand or an eye. Social posi- 
tion, literary culture, beauty, and accomplishments 



DOING ALL TO THE GLORY OF GOD. 119 

of every kind are to be laid joyously at Jesus' feet. 
His service sweetens and ennobles every attainment ; 
and every attainment, all true art, all forms of beauty 
and culture, may be so used as to add to the lustre of 
his glorious name. 

Terrible was this charge, and delivered in solemn 
tone : " The God in whose hand thy breath is, and 
whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified. " 
When the Church shall live for God alone, when her 
meat and drink shall be to do his will, then, indeed, 
shall she be " fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and 
terrible as an army with banners." 



IX. 

flDarital flMetp. 

"And they were both righteous before God, walking in all 
the commandments and ordinances of "the Lord blameless. " — 
Luke i. 6. 

THIS striking and beautiful statement is made of 
Zacharias and his wife, Elizabeth. Both hus- 
band and wife had significant names: Zacharias 
means whom Jehovah remembers, and Elizabeth 
means God's oath or worshipper. When the sacer- 
dotal families became numerous, David divided them 
into twenty-four classes. Of course so large a num- 
ber of priests could not officiate at one time at the Tab- 
ernacle or the Temple. It was, therefore, arranged 
that each course should serve a week or eight days, 
from Sabbath to Sabbath, and the eighth in the order 
of the twenty-four classes was the course of Abia, or 
rather Abijah. The heads of these twenty-four 
courses were chief priests, and were also members of 
the Sanhedrim. A priest might marry into any one 

of the tribes, but both Zacharias and his wife were 

120 



MARITAL PIETY. 121 

of the house of Aaron. This fact made their 
offspring the more illustrious among the Jews. 
Priestly rank was an indication of family greatness. 
John the Baptist was thus nobly descended: his 
father was a priest and his mother was of the daugh- 
ters of Aaron. Thus by both father and mother he 
descended from the family of Amram ; and from this 
family came also Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, than 
whom there were no more illustrious characters in 
the long line of Jewish history. This interesting 
couple thus rejoiced in a great ancestry ; they also, 
by the special favor of God, became the parents of a 
famous son, and they were themselves worthy in 
their own characters alike of their distinguished 
ancestors and their famous descendant. Let us 
notice some of the characteristics of their piety as 
they are brought out in the text. 

1 . Theirs was a genuine piety — " They were 
righteous before God." These words give this 
couple a noble commendation. The Word of God 
does not hesitate to give the due meed of praise to 
genuine worth. The apostle Paul loved to give com- 
mendation. He did not hesitate to blame when 
blame was deserved, but to commend rather than to 
censure he greatly preferred. We must not suppose 
that this description of the priestly pair is intended 
to imply that they were sinless. There is no sugges- 
tion here of sinlessness in heart or life; but there is 



122 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

a strong affirmation of general conformity to the 
law of God. Their righteousness was not like that 
of the Pharisee, merely outward and before men, but 
it was before the Omniscient God. They were sin- 
cerely pious within and without. The reference is 
especially to their strict observance of the law, as is 
afterward implied. Doubtless there was an acknowl- 
edgment of sin by them when it was committed, 
and a hearty striving against the repetition of the 
sinful act or thought. It is a high commendation, 
indeed, that the inspired writer gave them when he 
affirms that they were righteous before God. It 
is possible for us to deceive ourselves. Rebekah 
deceived herself and then her aged husband. The 
Jesuitical saying, that the end justifies the means, 
victimizes the Jesuit himself before he is able by 
it to victimize others. We impose upon ourselves 
before we impose upon our fellow-men. We must be 
untrue to our own nature before we can be untrue to 
those about us. The great dramatist teaches a pro- 
found philosophy when he exhorts us first to be true 
to ourselves, and assures us that then we cannot be 
false to any man. . The hypocrite makes himself his 
first victim. It is possible for us also for a time to 
deceive those about us. I have read of a London 
artist who exhibited a painting representing a friar 
clothed in his canonicals. When viewed at a dis- 
tance the painting seemed to represent the friar 



MARITAL PIETY. 123 

devouily engaged in prayer. Across his breast his 
hands are clasped together; like the publican in the 
parable, he does not lookup to the place where God's 
honor dwells. Indeed, he seems to be so absorbed 
in his devotion and so earnest in his adoration as 
to arrest attention and excite admiration; but as 
the onlooker draws nearer the deception vanishes. 
What at a distance seemed to be a prayer-book is 
now discovered to be a punch-bowl. The hypocrite's 
hands are not across his breast in the attitude of 
devotion, but only in the act of squeezing a lemon. 
This quaint idea is a striking illustration of a hypo- 
crite. Doubtless this picture fairly sets forth the 
lives of too many who are righteous before men but 
not righteous before God. They cannot long escape 
detection. No man can long play the hypocrite. 
What is in every man will surely come out. Give 
a man time enough and he will reveal his true char- 
acter. Self-revelation is inevitable in the life of 
every responsible being. The acts of a man's life 
will assuredly reveal the thoughts of his heart. 
Prolonged imposition is an utter impossibility. The 
great God looks through all human subterfuges and 
attempted hypocrisies. All things are naked and 
opened unto his eye. We cannot deceive God. 
Glorious, then, is the inspired commendation that 
this beautiful couple "were righteous before God." 
2. Theirs was a mutual piety — " They were both 



124 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

righteous before God." They were not unequally 
yoked together; their harmony in their religious 
faith was a signal mercy to both. It is a blessed 
thing when those who are joined together in mar- 
riage are also joined together in Christian experience 
by both being joined to the Lord. It is difficult to 
understand how a woman who has given her heart 
to the Lord Jesus can really give her hand to a man 
who rejects the Lord Jesus. It is difficult to see 
how she can be loyal to her Lord and be loving 
toward a man who hates that Lord. How can light 
have fellowship with darkness? A man who is 
struggling heavenward, while his wife lives for this 
life alone, is like a bird trying to fly with but one 
wing. It is impossible that a man and a woman 
united in the bonds of matrimony should not influ- 
ence each other for good or for evil. The Cherokee 
marriage ceremony beautifully expresses the unity of 
thought and life which should characterize the mar- 
riage relation. It is said that among this people the 
man and woman join hands in marriage over run- 
ning water, to indicate that henceforth their lives 
are to flow in one unbroken stream. A good wife is 
one of heaven's choicest gifts toman; she is God's 
angel of mercy; and she may be man's daily guar- 
dian and constant benediction. Abraham and Sarah 
were right in their anxiety regarding the wife that 
Isaac should choose ; and every parent should mani- 



MARITAL PIETY. 125 

fest a similar and, justifiable solicitude. The mar- 
riage relation is profoundly solemn. We do not 
forget the proverb which says that in marriage " you 
tie a knot with your tongue that you cannot untie 
with your teeth." It is a knot which should not be 
hastily tied, and which should never be untied except 
by the hand of death. As the years of pastoral life 
pass, I come more and more to attach importance to 
this relationship. Christian young men and young 
women should seek God's guidance and approval in 
every step which they take, and in every bond into 
which they enter. Some who once were active in 
the Christian life soon after marriage show as little 
interest in religious things as if they had been 
buried instead of being married. Christian wife, 
stand true to your religious obligations, even if your 
husband should laugh or sneer. Bring up your chil- 
dren in the fear of God. Ask God's blessing at your 
table. Erect the family altar in your home ; rather 
live in a roofless house than in a prayerless home. 
Mothers may control family life and train their 
children for good and for God even when fathers are 
comparatively indifferent to both. Christian father, 
if your wife be not a child of God still stand firm in 
your faith and loyally discharge your duty. Your 
wife as a prayerless mother is a sight which might 
make angels weep ; but you may be able by God's 
grace so to live as to train your children aright even 



126 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

though her influence be negatively, religious or openly 
irreligious. But it must be said that a man assumes 
a tremendous risk in marrying a woman of this 
kind. God grant that husbands and wives, united 
in all the other relations of life, may walk together 
in the narrow path which leads to heaven. 

3. Theirs was a practical piety — " ivalking in all 
the commandments and ordinances of the Lord 
blameless." Walking is that movement of the body 
by which it changes its place and performs its daily 
duty. In the Christian life this act stands for the 
trend, the tendency, the actuality, the totality of life. 
"When it is said that Enoch walked with God, we 
have a comprehensive statement of the controlling 
motive and practical characteristic of his entire life. 
Our religion must be one which manifests itself in 
our daily walk and conversation. Like the vestal 
fire, it must be a light which is never extinguished. 
There is an irressitible power in such a religion. 
You can no more lessen its influence by opposition 
than you can blot out the sun by denying its exist- 
ence. Quaintly has it been said that the Christian 
has first to make a good profession and then he has 
to make his profession good. Ten men read a Chris- 
tian's life for every man who reads the Christian's 
Bible. A Christian should be a living witness for 
God; he should be an incarnation of God's thought, 
of purity of heart, nobility of life, and Christliness of 






MARITAL PIETY. 127 

character. Elijah, in connection with Ahab, was 
a witness for the God of Israel whose testimony 
could neither be silenced nor misunderstood. Joseph 
in Egypt, resisting temptation because he would not 
sin against God, bore a testimony mightier than a 
whole library on the evidences of religion. Daniel 
in Babylon could still be loyal to God and faithful 
in the performance of duty. True religion must con- 
sist not only in joyous emotion, but chiefly in con- 
stant faithfulness to duty, and in consistent obedi- 
ence to God. True religion enables a man to control 
his thoughts, to ennoble his speech, and to purify his 
life. True religion makes a man a gentleman in the 
noble sense of that word ; it makes a man honest in 
business life ; it makes a man true in all his relations 
to his fellow- men always and everywhere. It goes 
with him wherever he goes. In this sense we need 
a walking religion. The man who can hide his 
religion has a religion not worth hiding. The sol- 
dier who will not wear his regimentals is no soldier. 
A banner is to be displayed ; only as it is displayed, 
is it a banner ; and God has given us a banner that 
it should be displayed for the truth. True religion 
makes a man give the right number of ounces to the 
pound, of inches to the yard, and of cents to the dol- 
lar. It makes him the greatest and noblest repre- 
sentative of God upon this sinful earth. This was 
the religion possessed by this noble couple of that 



128 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

olden time. This is the religion which every man 
and woman, every boy and girl, ought to possess and 
to manifest in our day. 

4. Theirs was an impartial piety — " They walked 
in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord 
blameless." By the commandments here we are to 
understand not only the ceremonial rites and ordi- 
nances, but also the moral requirements, of the law. 
The word ordinances stands specially for ceremonial 
observances. Although they were of the priestly 
order, they were not satisfied with a mere ritual relig- 
ion; they could not find peace in mere external 
compliance with the divine requirements. They 
discovered the inner, the deeper, the spiritual mean- 
ing of God's law. There never was but one true relig- 
ion. Its fundamental principles are the same in all 
climes and centuries. Christ came not to destroy 
but to fulfil the law. The first commandment of the 
decalogue he acknowledged in his summary of the 
law ; and he nowhere contradicts any of the teach- 
ings of the decalogue. The man in our day who 
will truly strive to keep the first commandment of 
the ten will be led to the feet and to the heart of 
Jesus Christ. 

There was no partiality in the faith of this noble 
husband and wife for one table of the law over the 
other. Like the Lord's Prayer, the first part of the 
decalogue refers to God and to our duty to him ; but 



MARITAL PIETY. 129 

the second table refers to our duty to our fellow-men. 
In the Lord's Prayer we are taught to pray that 
God's name may be hallowed and his will be done, 
before we pray for daily bread and the forgiveness 
of our debts ; but the two parts of this prayer, like 
the two parts of the decalogue, stand in closest rela- 
tion. To keep either table of the law aright implies 
the keeping of both tables aright. It has been said 
of some people that they are very pious Godward, but 
very "shaky" manward. Wherever this statement 
can truly be made a severe criticism is pronounced. 
If we do not love our fellow-men whom we have 
seen, how can we show that we love God whom we 
have not seen? Love to God must show itself by 
love to our neighbor. If we try to live on one table 
of the decalogue, or on one part of the Lord's Prayer, 
we become like a boat with one oar or a bird with one 
wing. If the hand be outstretched in supplication 
toward God, it must also be opened in benefaction 
toward men. There is great danger of partiality in 
our choice of God's commandments. Many a man 
practically says: "This commandment harmonizes 
with my taste ; therefore, I shall perform it. That 
one does not ; therefore, I shall neglect it. This one 
is in line with my social relations ; that one is not. I 
shall obey the one and neglect the other. This one 
is essential to salvation ; I shall perform it. That one 
is not; therefore, I shall neglect it." Such an atti- 



130 DIVINE B ALUS-TRADES. 

tude as this is unworthy of a true Christian man. 
He never asks, how little can I do and be saved; he 
simply inquires, " Lord, what wilt thou have me to 
do?" Our Lord instructed his apostles to teach 
those whom they discipled to observe all things what- 
soever he had commanded. Belief, baptism, all 
things that Christ commands, are necessary to obedi- 
ence. Christ stated the true test of love to be 
obedience. His words are, " If a man love me he will 
keep my words." The spirit of obedience, as shown 
by this consecrated pair, should be the spirit of every 
heart now as then. 

5. Theirs was a blameless piety — " walking in. all 
the commandments and ordinances of the Lord 
blameless. " This does not mean that they were sin- 
less ; verse twenty of this chapter clearly shows that 
they were not sinless. Zacharias was guilty of 
unbelief, but this commendation shows that they 
were exemplary observers of God's law. It also 
teaches us that their character was irreproachable, 
and that they would hot knowingly and willingly 
indulge in sin. Doubtless they strove to have con- 
sciences void of offence toward God and toward man. 
We cannot always be without blame. If we have 
positive elements in our character we will provoke 
antagonism and arouse hostility. As far as possible 
we are to live peaceably with all men and in the 



MARITAL PIETY. 131 

enjoyment of the reputation of being "blameless and 
harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke." It will 
not, however, be possible always so to live as to 
escape sharp criticism. We may, however, live lives 
of such transparent sincerity as to make opposition 
powerless, and the arrows of criticism pointless. 
Beautiful is the prayer of the apostle for the Philip- 
pians, when he prays that " Ye may be sincere and 
without offence." This prayer implies that they 
would not willingly injure others in property or in 
reputation. The word translated sincere in this 
connection is an unusually suggestive one. The 
word sincere is not the exact translation, but it also 
is worthy of our thought; it means "without wax," 
and is applied to honey which is pure and trans- 
parent, or to furniture which is without cracks 
and knot-holes filled with wax. This is a beau- 
tiful description of Christian character. But, 
as already noted, the word sincere does not correctly 
translate the original word in this prayer on be- 
half of the Philippians. The Greek word properly 
means that which is judged of in the sunshine. An 
article in a dark room may appear flawless and per- 
fect, but when exposed to bright sunshine its defects 
will appear. This is a prayer that a Christian's life 
may be so perfect that it may be judged in the 
brightest sunshine of daily publicity. Sincerity of 



132 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

this character means far more than the mere absence 
of criticism ; it has its positive elements, but when 
a life is thus sincere it will soon disarm hostile 
criticism, and will soon compel general respect and 
appreciation. 

How can such a life be lived? How may such a 
religious character as this ancient couple possessed 
be secured? These are reasonable and practical 
questions. There, is but one perfect life, the life of 
the Lord Jesus. Once only did the plant of humanity 
blossom and bloom into a perfect flower ; but, with 
our perverted taste and sinful natures, we cannot 
imitate that perfect life without renovation, without 
re-creation, without conversion, without regeneration. 
We must bring our soiled lives and our tainted hearts 
to God that both may be washed and made white in 
the fountain of cleansing. We must go to Christ 
just as we are, that we may be made as he would 
have us. Accept Jesus Christ now. Throw wide 
open the doors of the heart to his entrance. He will 
come as your heavenly guest. He will expel unholy 
thoughts and control unrighteous acts. He will 
purify the very fountain of life within, and, as the 
streams flow out in words and acts, they will be 
wholesome and become purifying like the fountain 
itself. Then old things shall have passed away, and 
all things shall have become new. Then shall we be 



MARITAL PIETY. 133 

new creatures in Christ Jesus, and by his grace we 
shall be able, like Zacharias and Elizabeth, to walk 
in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord 
blameless ; and then at the last we shall be presented 
before him and be blameless in his sight. 



X. 

four (Breat ftbings. 

, " And an angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim, 
and said, I made yon to go out of Egypt, and have brought 
you unto the land which I sivare unto your fathers; and I said, 
I ivill never break my covenant with you. And ye shall make 
no league with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw 
down their altars : but ye have not obeyed my voice. Why 
have ye done this ? 

" Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before 
you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods 
shall be a snare unto you. 

" And it came to pass, when the angel of the Lord spake these 
icords unto all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up 
their voice and wept. 

" And they called the name of that place Bochim: and they 
sacrificed there unto the Lord.' 1 ' 1 — Judges ii. 1-5. 

WE have in the previous chapter an account of 
several important matters which occurred 
shortly after the death of Joshua. In the chapter 
from which the text is taken, we have an account of 
those men who were the contemporaries of Joshua 

when they had, to a considerable degree, forsaken 

134 



FOUR GREAT THINGS. 135 

God, and were, as a result, without his special pres- 
ence and blessing. When they forsook God they 
became subject to the Canaanites; having broken 
their covenant with God, they made it impossible for 
him to fulfil his promises to grant them his leader- 
ship and to give them power over their foes. This 
chapter, and the first eight verses of the next, give us 
in brief space the substance of the whole Book of 
Judges. We here see the sad results of the sin com- 
mitted by God's people in their loss of power and in 
the absence of the divine presence. We also have 
an account of the repentance of the people, of God's 
pardoning mercy, and finally of his deliverance of 
them out of the hands of their enemies. This is the 
circle in which these historic events move, and this 
circle is practically that in which the whole history 
of Israel and of the entire Church continually re- 
volves. Coming immediately to the text, we have 
as the topic of this discourse Four Great Things : 

1. The first of these four is a Great Preacher. This 
great preacher is called in the first verse " an angel 
of the Lord ;" it is also said that he " came up from 
Gilgal to Bochim. " The question at once arises, Who 
was this great preacher? To that question many 
answers have been given. The Targum calls him a 
prophet; some modern interpreters also adopt this 
view, adding that he was endowed by God with 
extraordinary powers for carrying out an extraordi- 



136 DIVINE BALUSTRAIES. 

nary commission. Great duties, it is certain, were 
laid upon this preacher, as he had to rebuke the 
people for their sins and to explain why God had not 
driven out his and their enemies from the land which 
he had bestowed upon his people. Some Jewish com- 
mentators and others believe that this preacher was 
Phinehas, the high-priest. They reason that a man 
must be meant, because he is said to come from a 
place in the land and not from heaven, because he 
addressed a congregation of the people, and because 
he is not described as disappearing from their sight. 
Others understand this preacher to be an angel, in 
the ordinary meaning of that term. There are, how- 
ever, it seems to me, some serious, if not insuperable, 
difficulties in these interpretations. It seems impos- 
sible that this preacher could have been a man or a 
created angel. It is much more likely that he was 
the same glorious personage who is often spoken of 
in the Scriptures as the Angel of the Covenant. The 
same who met Abraham, the father of the faithful, 
with whom he entered into fraternal and heavenly 
communion ; the same who warned Lot to flee from 
Sodom; the same august being who met and 
wrestled with the patriarch Jacob on the banks of 
the brook Jabbok ; the same who appeared to Moses 
in the burning bush ; the same who brought Israel 
with an high hand and an outstretched arm out of 
Egypt, who led the great host through the wilderness 



FOUR GREAT THINGS. 1:3? 

and finally into the land of Canaan ; the same who 
appeared so mysteriously and sublimely to Joshua as 
the captain of the Lord's hosts near Gilgal; and the 
same who appeared to Gideon when threshing wheat 
with a flail in the wine-press. It is distinctly said, in 
this latter connection, "Jehovah looked upon him 
and said, Go in this thy might." This interpretation 
makes this great preacher no less and no other than 
the Lord Jesus Christ. The Son of God honored the 
world with frequent temporary incarnations before 
he became the child of Mary in the manger of 
Bethlehem. The Jehovah of the Old Testament is 
certainly the Jesus of the I^ew Testament. There is 
almost no doubt that in this case this was a divine 
messenger from heaven. During the period of 
Israel's history covered by the Book of Judges, the 
visits of angels were more frequent than was for- 
merly or subsequently the case, and there were 
reasons for these more frequent visits during that 
period. The records of their appearances belong, in 
a marked degree, to the period of the Judges and to 
that of the Captivity. It is well known that these 
were transition periods in the history of God's 
people; the period of the Judges was destitute of 
prophetic guidance and of certain former elements 
of direct revelation. It was, therefore, fitting that 
extraordinary messengers, created angels, and even 
the uncreated Angel of the Covenant, should come 



188 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

with messages from the throne of Israel's King. 
During the period of the Captivity Israel was brought 
into peculiar trials because of unusual contact with 
heathenism; it was, therefore, fitting that during 
that period also special manifestations of God's will 
should be given by the visits of angels. 

This great preacher was sent to God's thoughtless 
people at this time to secure their attention and to 
preserve them from idolatry and so from destruction. 
Two reasons make it clear that this was neither a 
man nor a created angel. He does not use the ordi- 
nary formula of delegated authority; he does not 
speak in the name of the Lord ; he does not say, 
" Thus saith the Lord ;" and again he ascribes to 
himself the honor of bringing the children of Israel 
out of Egypt, and he makes a covenant with them 
and threatens them with punishment if they do not 
turn from their sin. Who but God could use lan- 
guage of this sort? Who but God might say, " I 
made you to go up out of Egypt," and "have 
brought you into the land which I sware unto your 
fathers." We know that a little time before Joshua 
had warned the people against entangling alliances 
with the Canaanites, but these warnings they wicked- 
ly rejected. Now a greater than Joshua, the true 
Joshua, Jehovah-Jesus, repeats these solemn warn- 
ings. Like their descendants long years after, they 
despised the servants of God ; but of them as of those 



FOUR GREAT THINGS. 139 

to whom Christ spoke, wo may say, perhaps they 
will reverence the Son. We are here told that this 
great preacher came from Gilgal, and it has been 
suggested that perhaps the journey was made flying 
swiftly, as the angel Gabriel came to Daniel. It is 
natural that Gilgal should be mentioned in this con- 
nection. It had long been the headquarters of the 
people of Israel after they reached Canaan ; in Gilgal 
God had shown them many and great favors, and 
there the covenant of circumcision had been renewed. 
The fact that this great preacher came from Gilgal 
would add force to his words; the mention of this 
place would remind them of their solemn but now 
slighted obligations. It was well for them, and it is 
well for us, to be reminded of the solemn vows 
which certain places and periods in our history sug- 
gest and emphasize. 

It is a wonderfully inspiring thought that we have 
a visit and a sermon from the Lord Jesus in this 
early day, and that the account of both is given in 
this ancient record. We are accustomed to associate 
the preaching of Christ with the Sermon on the 
Mount; but here is a sermon from the Divine 
Preacher recorded in the Book of Judges. Of this 
earlier, and of the later, sermon we can say : " Never 
man spake like this man." Jesus Christ is still the 
world's Great Preacher. Our most eloquent preachers 
are but voices telling of his name and glory; their 



140 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

highest honor is to point to him and say : " Behold 
the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the 
world. " This Great Preacher still comes to the assem- 
blies of God's people. He is here this morning speak- 
ing words of awful authority, of sublime simplicity, 
and of tearful tenderness. He is here uttering his 
solemn warnings and pronouncing his precious 
promises. If the word shall be properly spoken in 
this pulpit this morning, not your pastor, but your 
Lord and Redeemer, is the preacher. Oh, listen, I 
beseech you, to this Divine Preacher and obey his 
heavenly message! Slight me and my words, but 
devoutly listen to my Lord, and bow in sweet sub- 
mission at his feet. 

2. A great congregation is next brought to our 
view. We know that a great congregation was 
assembled on this solemn and sublime occasion, for 
we learn from the fourth verse that " all the children 
of Israel" were present to hear the great preacher. It 
was fitting that so great a preacher should have a 
great congregation. "We do not know with certainty 
why the whole people were thus assembled. The 
occasion may have been one of the three solemn 
feasts, when all the males of the children of Israel 
appeared at the Tabernacle of the Lord ; or it may 
have been a solemn convocation of all the tribes to 
inquire of the Lord why they were not able to drive 
out the Canaanites ; and it has even been suggested 



FOUR GREAT THINGS. 141 

that the people were assembled to complete their prep- 
arations for war. They had suffered much, and 
they may have determined now to unite their forces 
and to make a tremendous onset on their foes. It 
seems more likely, however, that they were met for 
worship rather than for war. The place of their 
assembly may have been Shiloh, where was the Tab- 
ernacle of the Lord. We know that the place was 
afterward called Bochim, a name which signifies 
weepers, because of the general lamentation of the 
people at this time ; but probably the original name 
was Shiloh. The new name was given to the place 
because of the profound effect produced by this ser- 
mon. All Israel needed sharp reproof, and sharp 
reproof was now given and was received in the right 
spirit. Great congregations are desirable if they be 
properly secured. We know that congregations are 
to be weighed as well as counted; we know that 
some preachers " fit audiences find, though few ;" we 
know that preachers are not to be judged either as 
to their ability or usefulness by the size of their 
audiences ; we know that some of the great authors 
and preachers have spoken to small audiences, and 
we know that in our day the newspapers furnish the 
larger audiences for political orators and religious 
teachers. It is well understood that many a man, 
speaking in the halls of legislation of the state or the 
nation, is comparatively indifferent as to the size or 



142 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

interest of the audience before him ; for he is speak- 
ing to his constituents perhaps in a distant part of 
the country, who will eagerly read his words as 
reported in the newspapers. The newspaper is to a 
great degree the flying angel with the roll in the 
nineteenth century. The advantages which the press 
offers to a preacher in enlarging the circle of his 
hearers are not to be despised, but to be constantly 
and earnestly used. Every preacher ought to seek 
for as large an audience as can legitimately be 
secured. If he has truths to present which fifty 
people ought to hear, they ought to be heard by five 
hundred, and, if possible, by five thousand. But no 
preacher is justified in using means unbecoming the 
dignity of his pulpit and the sacredness of his mes- 
sage in order to increase the number of his hearers ; 
no preacher must dishonor himself by buffoonery or 
his message by misrepresentation in order to preach 
to great congregations. If a man chooses to resort 
to such unworthy means he can secure the crowd, 
and then can exert himself " to split the ears of the 
groundlings." But all such efforts are unworthy of 
him and are dishonoring to the Gospel and to the 
Lord. Audiences which begin by laughing with a 
clownish preacher will end, as the Autocrat of the 
Breakfast Table has suggested, by laughing at him. 
The motive which influences a preacher at all these 
points will give direction to the efforts which he 
makes. 



FOUR GREAT THINGS. 143 

It is very probable that we have not used the press 
and certain permissible pulpit methods to so great a 
degree as we might and ought. Preachers who take 
great pains thoroughly to prepare themselves often 
feel utterly discouraged because corresponding pains 
are not taken by even their own church-members to 
hear the words thus carefully prepared and earnestly 
spoken. Every preacher may well believe that he is 
not called upon to preach to empty seats. Empty 
seats do not need sermons. Church cushions have 
no souls either to be saved or lost. A former pastor 
in this city used to affirm that he had poured a 
sufficient amount of biblical knowledge and theo- 
logical learning into the cushions on the back pews 
of his church to edify several theological semi- 
naries, and a score of churches. We must not, how- 
ever, neglect the audiences made up of one, two, or 
three. To Nicodemus, in that remarkable nocturnal 
interview, our blessed Lord poured out his heart with 
a glorious fulness and freeness of heavenly love; to 
this one hearer he gave a fuller statement of the part 
which each Person in the divino Trinity performs 
in the work of human redemption than is found 
anywhere else in the gospels or anywhere in the 
epistles. To the woman of Samaria at the well the 
Lord Jesus preached a wonderful sermon, and to this 
audience of one he gave the fullest declaration of his 
Messiahship that he had anywhere given up to 



144 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

that time. As we read that declaration we are filled 
with amazement alike at his condescension and wis- 
dom. To the two disciples on the way to Emmaus 
on the evening of his glorious resurrection-day, the 
Lord Jesus gave more time than to any other per- 
sons, so far as the record goes, during the entire 
period of the forty days between his resurrection and 
his ascension. To these men he opened in a won- 
derful way the Old Testament Scriptures; to them 
he gave the marvellous exposition of Moses and of 
the prophets, showing how they spoke of himself, 
and thus he made the hearts of the disciples burn 
within them as he opened to them the Scriptures, 
and opened also their eyes to behold wondrous things 
therein. We need in our personal relations, both 
as ministers and laymen^ to make more of audiences 
of one. We know that two or three is a gospel 
quorum, and when they meet together they may be 
assured that Christ will be in the midst. It is a 
comparatively easy thing to denounce sin and sin- 
ners, not having any particular sin or sinner in mind ; 
but it is a very different thing to take a man by the 
hand, to look him in the eyes, and say to him, 
" Thou art the man," or thus personally to invite him 
to yield his heart to God. Let us secure the largest 
audiences we can by the use of proper means, and 
then let us as ministers and laymen follow up the 
public proclamation of truth by warm, hearty, per- 



FOUR GREAT THINGS. 145 

sonal appeals. Personal work for Christ is one of 
the possible glories of the Church, and one of the 
triumphs of its individual disciples. We can rightly 
imitate the example of Christ in preaching, when 
we may, to the great congregation, and in enforcing 
truth as we ought upon a single hearer. 

3. We have here also a great sermon. It was not 
a long sermon, but it contained great truths and it 
produced remarkable results. That is always the best 
sermon, whatever its homiletic construction may be, 
which brings forth the most and the best fruit. The 
Lord's sermon on this occasion cut the people to the 
quick; like the apostle Peter's hearers on the day of 
Pentecost, " they were pricked in their heart. " The 
great preacher reminded them of what God had done 
for them in bringing them out of the land of slavery 
and into the land of freedom and prosperity. With 
true oratorical skill he painted their former misery 
as a dark background on which he limned their pres- 
ent felicity. He contrasted in a striking way their 
former darkness with their present brightness, their 
previous devotion to national death with their present 
election to national life. He reminded them of his 
oath to their fathers, and of his promise that he 
would never break his covenant. That covenant he 
had not broken; if ever it were broken the fault 
would be theirs and not his. We make God's cove- 
nant null and void because we fail to perform our 
10 



146 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

part of the same. This divine preacher then pro- 
ceeds to remind the people of what he had a right to 
expect from them in their relations to the Canaanites. 
They must not make a league with his enemies and 
theirs ; they cannot serve God and the gods of the 
Canaanites. Here we have the announcement of 
great principles — principles which are as true to-day 
as they were in that day. The line of demarcation 
between the world and the Church should be broad 
and deep. "We must not attempt to play fast and 
loose with the commands of God ; there must be no 
halting on our part between the claims of the world 
and the rights of God. God has no need of half- 
hearted professors of religion; the lukewarm he 
rejects with a holy loathing : he would have us either 
cold or hot. This great sermon further shows that 
the people had disobeyed God in all his commands 
and ordinances ; they forgot their covenant with the 
Most High, and made leagues with the Canaanites ; 
they neglected God's altar, and did not throw down 
the altars of his and their foes. This sermon, then, 
demands that they shall give an explanation for 
their disobedience. What excuse is possible for 
their misconduct? How can they make an apology 
for their opposition to the truth and their fellowship 
with sin and sinners? But are not we guilty as were 
they? Are there not those in this audience who in 
like manner have forgotten God, and who have wor- 



FOUR GREAT THINGS. 147 

shipped Belial rather than God ; who have neglected 
divine duties and have given time, thought, and 
earnest service to the works of darkness? While 
we pronounce a right judgment on these great sin- 
ners, shall we not also willingly and penitently ad- 
mit that we are also in the same condemnation? 

But as we study this ancient sermon by our Lord, 
we see also that his hearers and we must expect to 
suffer for neglect of duty and commission of evil. 
Our Lord here shows that, because of the sin of the 
people, he refuses to drive out the Canaanites ; this 
truth is earnestly taught in the third verse of my 
text. The Lord practically says, " You will not obey 
my commands, therefore I will not fulfil my 
promises." Here also a great law in the divine 
economy and in human experience is declared. If 
we indulge in sin, we forfeit the grace of God ; if 
we do not resist the devil, God will not trample him 
under our feet. There is no possibility of escaping 
the action of these great moral forces which sweep 
through the universe. The Lord further declares 
here that the Canaanites shall be as thorns in the 
sides of the Israelites, and the gods of the heathen 
shall be a snare to his people. This is an illustra- 
tion of the inevitable tendency of evil. The law of 
addition has its full manifestation when we yield to 
the first sin; sins multiply with fearful rapidity. 
One lie necessitates a hundred. There is a gracious 



148 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

law of addition in Christian experience; for while 
one man of God shall chase a thousand men of the 
devil, two men of God shall chase not two thousand, 
but ten thousand, disciples of Satan. This gracious 
principle has its sad illustration when the law of 
addition is perverted to the service of sin and Satan. 
The men who trifle with sin shall be triumphed over 
by evil; "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he 
also reap." This law is universal as gravitation, 
and eternal as God. 

4. We have here also a great result. To this 
point every sermon ought to tend. Sermons are not 
ends, but means to ends. We do not preach to save 
sermons, but to save souls. It is said that when 
Massillon preached at Versailles, Louis XIV. paid 
a tribute to the power of his sermons which every 
preacher might well covet. The haughty king, after 
hearing one of Massillon's powerful appeals to the 
conscience, said : " Father, when I hear some men 
preach I go away saying, How eloquent the preacher 
is ! But when I hear you, I go away saying, How 
great a sinner I am!" This remark gives us an 
important distinction between two kinds of preach- 
ing, and pronounces a fine encomium on the latter 
method. When we turn to the fourth verse of my text, 
we read of this great congregation that " the people 
lifted up their voices and wept. " The arrow of divine 
truth went through the joints of their harness and 



FOUR GREAT THINGS. 149 

pierced the heart. Like the publican, they were ready 
to beat upon their breasts and each one say : " God be 
merciful to me a sinner ! " Like some of those who be- 
held the Great Preacher of this occasion afterward up- 
on the cross, they were ready to mourn as one mourn- 
eth for his first-born. Doubtless they feared God's 
wrath; they knew well that they had merited his 
righteous indignation. As a result of their weepings, 
the place, as we have seen, was called Bochim. Dis- 
obedience to God will always bring tears when our 
guilt is realized. We read also that they offered 
sacrifices unto Jehovah at the close of this sermon ; 
they thus desired to atone for the sins of which they 
had been guilt} 7 . They thus acknowledged their sin, 
and expressed a desire to comply with the appoint- 
ments of God in the case of sinners. 

Ought there not to be weeping over sin in this 
audience this morning? Have we joined in denun- 
ciation of the guilt of this ancient audience while 
listening to the Divine Preacher? Shall we dare go 
to our homes now without joining them in weeping 
for our own sins as they did for theirs? We have 
sinned against greater light. They were in the gray 
dawn of the morning; we are in the brightness of 
its noonday sun. They saw Christ's day at best afar 
off ; we have stood beside his cross hearing his dying 
groan, and we have seen him go forth in triumph 
from the tomb Uttering his triumphant " All hail !" 



150 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

They had to offer sacrifices for their sin, but the 
great sacrifice has now been offered once for all. We 
have now but to accept its gracious provisions ; we 
have now but to give ourselves as living sacrifices 
unto God. Let your pastor disappear from view ; let 
the Angel of the Covenant, Jehovah-Jesus, be the 
preacher this morning. Listen now to his voice as 
he says to each one : " My son, my daughter, give 
me thine heart ;" and let your' sweet response be : 

"Here's my heart — oh, take and seal it ! 
Seal it for thy courts above '," 



XL 



Gbe ©tt> Testament 1Ilnfol&et> in 
tbe IHew. 

" And beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, he expound- 
ed unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning 7ura- 
st'7/."— Luke xxiv. 27. 

THE Bible is not two books, but one. There 
never were two true religions in the world, but 
only one. Judaism and Christianity, when both are 
rightly understood, teach the same great truth, and 
are in perfect harmony with each other. Judaism 
is the root and the trunk; Christianity is the flower 
and the fruit. Judaism is the gray dawn of the 
morning ; Christianity is the sunshine in its noonday 
splendor. The apostle Paul was never opposed to 
Christianity in the philological meaning of that 
word. The devout men on the day of Pentecost 
were really not opposed to Christianity. The apostle 
Paul and these "devout men out of every nation 
under heaven" were Messiah ians, if we may coin a 

new word. They believed in and they loved the 

151 



152' DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

Messiah, but they did not know that Jesus of Naza- 
reth was the Messiah of prophecy. When the apostle 
Paul learned this truth he cried out, " Lord, what 
wilt thou have me to do?" When these men, on the 
day of Pentecost, learned this truth they said, 
" Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Messiahians 
are Christians. The one word is Hebrew, the other 
is Greek, but both mean the same thing. A devout 
Jew needed only to know that Jesus was the Christ 
to believe in him, and thus to become a true Jew by 
being a true Christian. He is not a true Jew who 
is only a Jew ; he is the true Jew who has passed 
from Judaism into Christianity. There is no con- 
tradiction between these two forms of faith. The 
one is the germ, the other the fruit ; the one is child- 
hood, the other is manhood; the one, as we have 
already implied, is morning, the other is noonday. 
There is no contradiction between the law and the 
Gospel. The law is the Gospel implied, suggested, 
foreshadowed; the Gospel is the law realized, 
actualized, fulfilled. Finely did Augustine long ago 
say : " The New Testament is enfolded in the Old, 
and the Old Testament is unfolded in the New." 

1. We might expect that the New Testament 
would unfold the Old when we consider what is the 
design of both Testaments. If we discover clearly 
what this design is we shall see clearly that there 
must be harmony between both, and that the later 



THE OLD TESTAMENT UNFOLDED. 153 

Testament must reveal and glorify the earlier. The 
design of the Bible is to make known God and men 
in their mutual relations; it is to manifest God's 
fulness and man's need; it is to supply man's 
spiritual necessities discovered by the recognition 
of these mutual relations. Many mistake the true 
design of the Word of God. They seem to think 
that it is a text-book of science, of history, and of 
systematic theology. Because they do not find all 
these and kindred subjects treated in extenso, they 
turn away from the book with disappointment and 
oppose it with unfairness. The Bible is not a text- 
book on any one of these subjects. It does, however, 
give us much information of the most valuable kind 
on all these subjects ; but its references to history are 
alwa}^s subordinate to the main design for which it 
was written. 

Not Herodotus, but Moses, is the true Father of His- 
tory. More than a thousand years before the days 
of Herodotus Moses earned the right to this title. 
The Bible also gives us frequent and beautiful 
descriptions of nature. It anticipated in no doubt- 
ful allusions many of the discoveries of scientists in 
most recent times : the circulation of the blood, the 
Copernican system of astronomy, and similar com- 
paratively recent discoveries are certainly suggested 
in biblical statements. But all these allusions are 
merely incidental. God, in giving us a revelation of 



154 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

his will, was pleased to make the book, as Dr. Ham- 
ilton has said, attractive as well as instructive. He 
has rilled it with sunny pictures, with charming 
incidents, with thrilling narratives, with stately 
arguments, and with lofty descriptions, while its 
main purpose was to guide us to purity of life and to 
faith in God as our Father and Saviour. Creation 
may show us God's hand, but revelation shows us 
God's heart. It reveals not only that he has an 
almighty arm, but also that he has a motherly heart. 
Apart from the Word of God, it is impossible for us 
rightly to understand the heart of God. It reveals to 
us at the same time the condition of man as a sinner 
and the necessity of his regeneration, that he may 
become truly a child of God. Even heathen mythol- 
ogy taught in some vague way these great truths. 
But the Bible throws a flood of brightest light where 
heathenism threw only the dark shadow of specu- 
lation. 

The Bible also reveals our destiny, and declares 
the possibility of our being heirs of God and joint 
heirs with Jesus Christ; but the wisest sages of 
heathenism could only guess at these great truths. 
The Bible also clearly makes known the manner by 
which sinful men may receive the forgiveness and 
be admitted to the favor of God. In carrying out 
this lofty purpose the unity of both Testaments 
might fairly be assumed. The same lesson was 



THE OLD TESTAMENT UNFOLDED. 155 

given in the Old Testament as in the New ; but in the 
Old Testament we spell it out in a dim alphabet, 
while in the New we pronounce it in letters of living 
light. God is one ; truth is one. God cannot con- 
tradict himself. His voice in one age, in one dis- 
pensation, in one book, must harmonize with his 
voice in all ages, dispensations, and revelations. If 
the sun which is rising in the Old Testament be the 
Sun of Righteousness we may expect that it will 
shine in undimmed splendor in the noonday of the 
New Testament. God's love was declared even at 
the gates of Eden. Here floated out the first notes 
of that celestial song whose full chorus was heard on 
the plains of Bethlehem. God's love was shining in 
its dawning light along the whole line of Old Testa- 
ment story, but it shone in its meridian splendor 
around the cross of his only-begotten Son, our well- 
beloved Redeemer. 

2. We might expect that the New Testament would 
unfold the Old when we consider the necessity of 
unity in carrying out this grand design. There is 
apparent^ great diversity in the Bible. We find it 
divided into sixty-six tracts and into two great 
divisions. In the former division there are thirty- 
nine of these booklets, written by thirty -two differ- 
ent men, and in the latter twenty-seven written by 
eight different men. Thus not fewer than forty 
writers have been engaged in the preparation of the 



156 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

entire volume. These writers represented various 
countries, nationalities, degrees of intelligence, social 
conditions, and religious attainments. Some of them 
were prophets, some priests, some kings ; some were 
statesmen, some herdsmen, some farmers, some 
fishermen. To the careless reader these facts would 
imply a great lack of unity in the result. And this 
apparent lack would be the more marked when we 
observe the great variety there is in the contents of 
these sixty-six tracts. They contain histories of crea- 
tion, of various institutions, of intricate laws, and of 
many persons ; they contain biographies, poems, and 
prophecies. Some of them deal with the past and 
some with the future ; some stretch forward to the 
grand consummation of all things in a new heaven 
and a new earth. But we have not here a mean- 
ingless and heterogeneous mass of facts. All these 
writings are but one book, and that book comes to 
us with claims of greater antiquity and of higher 
authority than any other volume known among men. 
It has excited more bitter hatred and it has evoked 
tenderer love than any other book. No man can 
study it prayerfully and profoundly without being 
impressed with its genuineness, authenticity, unity, 
and uniqueness. It was the production of men who 
wrote for immediate necessities, and yet it speaks 
for all climes and centuries. As it is the oldest, so 
it is the wisest, the most beautiful, and the most 



THE OLD TESTAMENT UNFOLDED. 157 

sublime of volumes. No one of the miracles which 
it narrates is half so miraculous as the narration 
itself. It is the founder of all schools of learning 
and the corner-stone of all true systems of civiliza- 
tion and the basis of all codes of law. It has inspired 
the loftiest poetry and the noblest music, the grand- 
est literature, the most enduring painting, and the 
divinest sculpture. 

This diversity is, however, in harmony with 
God's method in nature. The human body has many 
parts, but it is one body. No man can study its 
structure without discovering unity in its design. 
The wisdom of its Author is seen in the adjustment 
of its parts. Precisely so is it in creation as a whole. 
No man who carefully studies all the spheres of 
God's creative power can doubt for a moment that 
one thought dominates the whole. There is perfect 
unity in the midst of the greatest diversity; there is 
perfection even in the midst of apparent incomple- 
tion. The glory of any art or work is that it accom- 
plishes the purpose of its creation. God's great Book 
of Nature is thus complete. It reveals his thoughts 
in rocks and flowers, in fields and forests. The 
heavens declare his glory and the song of birds is the 
chanting of his praise. He has made river and 
rivulet ; and sea and ocean are revelations alike of 
his wisdom and power. All the discoveries of our 
own times go to prove the unity of creation. Each 



158 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

department of inquiry is but a fragment in itself, 
but all put together give us a grand and perfect 
whole. Sciences which were once supposed to stand 
widely apart are constantly tending, as modern 
investigation shows, to union. It has been well said 
by Principal Dawson, that " the great natural forces 
of light, heat, and electricity are tending to coalesce. 
The spectroscope has united optics and chemistry 
with one another and with astronomy. Geology has 
welded together in the past history of the earth a 
great number of physical sciences." 

This great diversity is consistent with the highest 
forms of unity, human and divine. All great works 
must be characterized by unity. No poem can be 
truly called great except it possess this characteristic. 
While there is in the Bible a lack of any formal 
system of theology, there is present in glorious ful 
ness the great truths which God designs to com- 
municate to men. System is human; method is 
divine. Perfect system we expect to find in cabinet 
and in herbarium ; but we do not find it associated 
with living things. God has his own method of 
revelation. In the Bible there is the joyous variety 
of nature, but unity everywhere. The man who 
rightly studies it discovers in any particular book, or 
in the relation of that book to the other books, a 
unity as real as he finds in a Shakespearian play, in 
Milton's "Paradise Lost," or in Tennyson's "In 



THE OLD TESTAMENT UNFOLDED. 159 

Memoriam." With all the variety necessarily in the 
histories, biographies, apothegms, poems, proverbs, 
prophecies, and moral discourses, there is a unity 
as real as that which we find in the human body — a 
unity as real as between foundation-walls and towers 
of some glorious temple. Mr. William Walters, in 
his book entitled " Claims of the Bible, " illustrates 
this thought when he says : " We have a diversity 
of currents and streams, yet they all belong to the 
mighty river of Revelation — the river of the water of 
life, proceeding from the throne of God and the 
Lamb." 

Growing out of this fact we see that one inspired 
writer quotes from another in support of his state- 
ments. We see that the epistles illustrate the Penta- 
teuch, and the gospels unfold the prophecies. The 
great purpose for which the Bible was written is 
never forgotten from the first majestic words of 
Genesis to the last love-notes of Revelation. Finely 
has Mr. Beecher said: "As in Beethoven's match- 
less music there runs one idea, worked out through 
all the changes of measure and key, now almost 
hidden, now breaking out in rich natural melody, 
whispered in the treble, murmured in the bass, sim- 
ply suggested in the prelude, but growing clearer and 
clearer as the work proceeds, winding gradually back 
until it ends in the key in which it began, and closes 
in triumphant harmony, so throughout the Bible 



160 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

there runs one great idea, man's ruin by sin and 
his redemption by grace — in a word, Jesus Christ the 
Saviour." This being true, we might expect that 
the Old Testament would enfold the New and the 
New Testament unfold the Old. 

3. What we might expect we actually find as the 
result of a careful examination of the teaching of 
the New Testament. There is in the Word of God 
a true development from first to last. There is rhet- 
orical skill in the revelations of God; he is the 
grand rhetorician, as he is the divine logician. 
The Bible might well be studied for its literary 
merits along the line of exact logic, as truly as in 
the great realm of its lyric poetry > or in its loftier 
strains of seraphic prophecy. There is in it the 
genuine progress of thought, which a true literary 
style demands and illustrates. It is no cold and 
mechanical production, but is a living organism, 
animated in every part by the breath of God. 

As the oak is in the acorn, so was the New Testa- 
ment in the Old. As the Corliss engine was once a 
thought in the mind of its inventor, so was the com- 
pleted Testament in the mind of its divine Author. 
In Genesis we have the germ of all the revelations 
of God and man, of sin and redemption, found in 
the later portions of the Old Testament and in all 
portions of the New. Indeed, it is not possible to 
understand either Testament except as we understand 



THE OLD TESTAMENT UNFOLDED. 161 

both. The man who thinks he honors the New by 
dishonoring the Old has succeeded simply in dishon- 
oring both. It is astounding that men should 
lightly esteem the earliest portions of this one revela- 
tion with some vague idea of giving thereby addi- 
tional honor to the later portions of the same. As 
well might they think they honored the lofty crown 
of the Eiffel Tower while they attempted to destroy 
its deep foundation. Any man who will stand in 
the Book of Genesis at the gate of Eden will see the 
foundations of the grand structure whose cap-stone 
is laid by Christ and his apostles. He will hear the 
first notes of the song whose full hymn of praise is 
sung on lonely Patmos, with the music of the waves 
breaking on the rock-bound shore as its grand 
accompaniment. Our blessed Lord showed most 
clearly that the New Testament unfolds the Old. 
Without him the Bible is meaningless; without 
him earth is hopeless; without him heaven is 
charmless. Around his cradle and his cross all 
the ages have gathered. 

"When he said in John viii. 56, "Your father 
Abraham rejoiced to see my day : and he saw it, and 
was glad," he unfolded to those who heard his 
words and to all who read them, Genesis xxii. 13 
and 14, when Abraham found the burnt-offering 
instead of his son Isaac and called the name of that 

place Jehovah-jireh. When he said, in the tenth 
11 



162 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

chapter of the same gospel, " I am the good shep- 
herd," he unfolded the twenty-third Psalm, in which 
David sang the praise of that good shepherd. When 
he cried upon the cross, "My God, my God, why 
hast thou forsaken me?" he unfolded the twenty- 
second Psalm, in which David sang of his crucified 
Lord. In his triumphant resurrection and glorious 
ascension he unfolded the twenty-fourth Psalm, in 
which David enfolded these great truths in his lofty 
song. It is impossible to read the story of his birth 
without seeing how gloriously it unfolds Isaiah's 
description of him as the Child born, the Son given 
whose name was Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty 
God, the Everlasting Father, and the Prince of 
Peace. It is impossible to read the prayer of the 
apostle John in apocalyptic vision — "Even so, 
come, Lord Jesus" — without having suggested to our 
mind the long line of prophecies regarding that com- 
ing from the first announcement in Genesis iii. 15, 
that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of 
the serpent. It is not possible to walk with Christ 
on the way to Emmaus on the evening of his res- 
urrection-day without seeing how gloriously he 
unfolded the Old Testament concerning himself. 
His words rebuke all who deny the harmony between 
the two Testaments and all who depreciate the value 
of the Old Testament. Our Lord gave more of his 
time on that day to these two travellers, Cleopas and 



THE OLD TESTAMENT UNFOLDED. 163 

the unknown, bo ho evangelist Luke or some other 
disciple, than he gave to any other company, so far 
as we know, during all of his resurrection-life. He 
spent his time in showing how his own life was an 
unfoldment of the Old Testament Scriptures. He 
rebuked them and all others who fail to see him in 
the Old Testament, in the words, " O fools, and slow 
of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken ! 
Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and 
to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses, 
and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the 
Scriptures the things concerning himself." He 
showed them the truth of his own words, " that all 
things must be fulfilled, which were written in the 
law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, 
concerning me." Is Christ to be believed? If not, 
then it is useless to study his words or to attach 
importance to either Testament. But if he is to be 
believed, then these prophets, beginning with Moses, 
and all these Scriptures enfolded great truths con- 
cerning him, which were literally unfolded in his 
divine-human history. To search these Scriptures 
and to find in them nothing of Christ, nothing of 
how he was to suffer, to die, and to enter into his 
glory, is to understand them in a vastly different 
manner from that taught by our divine Lord. On 
this journey, without doubt, he referred to some of 
the great leading prophecies concerning himself. 



164 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

His hearers were familiar with these special por- 
tions of the Old Testament. We can well believe 
that he began with the promise given at Eden's gate 
regarding the seed of the woman; that he moved 
forward to the covenant with Abraham, to the 
Paschal Lamb, to the exodus from Egypt, to the rais- 
ing up of the prophet like unto himself; to the 
Shechinah, the tabernacle, the mercy-seat, the 
manna, and the brazen serpent; to the vision of 
Isaiah, when he saw his glory, to the prophecy of 
Daniel that the Messiah should come, and to other 
similar Scriptures. 

Wonderful exposition — glorious expositor — happy 
hearers ! No wonder that their hearts burned within 
them as he opened to them the Scriptures. That 
very morning he had burst the barriers of the 
grave ; that day angels honored the place where his 
head and feet had lain. He was the incarnate God, 
fresh from his victory on the cross and over the 
grave, and going forward to his place on the throne ; 
and yet he spent more time that afternoon speaking 
to an audience of two, doing the word of a Sunday- 
school teacher, expounding the Old Testament Script- 
ures, showing how they are unfolded in his own 
life, than he ever spent, so far as the record informs 
us, in instructing any other hearers during his 
resurrection-life. Dr. Pentecost, in his instructive 
little book entitled " In the Volume of the Book," 



THE OLD TESTAMENT UNFOLDED. 165 

tells us that " there are nearly one thousand direct 
quotations from or allusions to the Old Testament 
Scriptures in the New, and that every book in the 
Old Testament, unless it be the Book of Esther, is 
quoted from or alluded to in the lines of the New 
Testament." In the words of John the Baptist, 
" Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin 
of the world," we have unfolded all the Old Testa- 
ment references to the Paschal Lamb and the blood 
sprinkled on the door-posts on that dreadful night in 
Egypt. We are also reminded that the Messiah was 
to be brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and also 
of the lamb sacrificed on Jewish altars through 
the long series of symbolic years. In his words to 
Nicodemus, " As Moses lifted up the serpent in the 
wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted 
up, " we have unfolded • the wonderful story of the 
brazen serpent in the twenty -first chapter of the 
Book of Numbers. In the reference to our being 
"made nigh by the blood of Christ," Eph. ii. 13, 
we have unfolded the Old Testament reference to the 
law of sacrifice and to the divisions of the Temple. 
The Epistle to the Romans unfolds to us the Book of 
Genesis, and the Epistle to the Hebrews the Book 
of Leviticus. The New Testament is the developed 
truths which were in germ in the Old. Every part of 
the revelation is perfect in its place. The rivulet is 
perfect as a rivulet, the river as a river. Jesus, 



166 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

we are told, increased in wisdom and in stature, and 
in favor with God and man. But he was perfect as 
a boy as truly as he was perfect as a man. The idea 
of growth in the Word of God is no reflection upon 
its perfection. Each part is perfect in its time and 
place. Neither is the human element in the Word 
of God any reflection upon its perfection. The 
incarnate Word was human as well as divine, and 
his humanity is an imperishable element in the glory 
of his divinity. He was divinity humanized, and 
in the humanization of the divine we have in some 
degree the divinization of the human. 

The revealed Word is also human and divine, and 
as truly may we say of it as of him that the human 
element adds to the glory of the divine element. A 
revelation for the human race must come through 
human forms of speech. The reader of the Old 
Testament must feel, as Robinson expressed himself 
to the Pilgrim Fathers when leaving England, " I 
am very confident the Lord hath more truth yet to 
break forth out of his holy Word." Standing in 
the light of the New Testament he discovers that 
more truth has broken forth, and that its beneficent 
rays are falling upon his upturned face and rejoic- 
ing his grateful heart. 

We have also in the teaching of the apostles 
similar unfoldments of the Old Testament narra- 
tives. We have often felt that we would give much 



THE OLD TESTAMENT UNFOLDED. 107 

to have heard Christ expounding Moses and the 
prophets and the Psalms concerning himself. With- 
out doubt he spent a considerable part of the forty 
days in doing this work; and without doubt the 
apostles in the early days of the Church, when the 
spirit came upon them in mighty power, were imi- 
tating his example. We have in their teachings, 
we may be sure, the substance of our Lord's exposi- 
tions. The epistles are the echoes of those won- 
derful conversations with the disciples. The early 
sermons of the disciples unfold the teachings of the 
Lord under the guidance of the Spirit. Few studies 
could be more profitable than a careful analysis of the 
sermons of the apostles. On the day of Pentecost 
the apostle Peter showed how the Old Testament 
unfolded the truths concerning Christ, and his ser- 
mon shows us how we may unfold in our sermons 
and Sunday-school lessons these same truths to 
indifferent hearers or to anxious inquirers. Stephen 
followed the example of Peter and of the Master. 
His sermon is cogent in reasoning, eloquent in 
appeal, and mighty in Scripture throughout. How 
gloriously Philip made known to the Ethiopian 
treasurer the things concerning the Lord. He unfolds 
that blessed chapter of Isaiah so that our hearts 
rejoice as we follow the earnest evangelist and his 
interesting inquirer. The Acts of the Apostles has 
been called the Gospel of the Risen Jesus, or the Gos- 



168 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

pel of the Holy Ghost. It tells the same story as the 
gospels ; it unfolds the same precious truths regard- 
ing Old Testament prophecy. Gloriously does the 
matchless Paul unfold the Old Testament story in 
sermon and in epistle, in prayer, and in doxology. 

The Bible has been and is in the fierce fires of 
modern criticism. Some of the scaffolds men have 
built in creed and in confession, in interpretation and 
exposition, around the temple of truth may be rudely 
torn down. Let them go. They have often deformed 
the glorious Temple of God. Let the Bible be true, 
though all creeds be false. Thank God, it is read, 
understood, believed, loved, and lived now as never 
before in the history of the Church ; thank God, it will 
stand through all the ages. " The grass" of infidel 
oratory, and sometimes of so-called Christian teach- 
ing, " withereth, and the flower" of sceptical reason- 
ing and creedal teaching " f alleth, but the "W ord of the 
Lord abideth forever." Let each pray, with the 
loving George Herbert : 

" Oh, that I knew how all thy lights combine, 
And the configuration of their glory ! 
Seeing not only how each verse doth shine, 
But all the constellations of the story ! " 



XII. 

IKlo flDore Sea. 

"And there was no more sea." — Rev. xxi. 1. 

THE 21st chapter of Revelations describes the 
triumphant state of the redeemed Church with 
all its conflicts over and all its enemies destroyed. 
That happy condition is represented under the image 
of a beautiful city, the New Jerusalem which John 
in vision saw descending out of heaven. Jerusalem 
was to the Hebrew the symbol of the heavenly 
world; the peculiar dwelling-place of God. But 
this New Jerusalem has no temple, for it is all 
temple; it has no light, for it is all light. "The 
Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple 
of it," "and the Lamb is the light thereof." But 
nothing struck John more forcibly than that in it 
"there was no more sea." This places heaven in 
marked contrast with the earth. Here three-fourths 
of the surface of the globe are occupied with seas 
and oceans ; and thus these parts of the earth are unfit 

for the dwelling-place of men. Perhaps one thought 

169 



170 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

in the mind of the apostle was, that in heaven there 
would be no wastes of water ; that all parts of this 
redeemed earth would be habitable. 

But his meaning is deeper. Figurative as the 
language is, there is deep significance in the figure. 
All nature is voiceful, if only we be attentive to her 
teaching. We go far to see a painting which is the 
work of man's hand, if only it shows the touch of 
genius. Thousands yearly make pilgrimages to 
Dresden to stand in admiration, akin to adoration, 
before Raphael's matchless Madonna, and they do 
well. But we are often strangely insensible to the 
pictures which God lays on the bosom of mother 
earth, or hangs in peerless splendor on the arch of the 
heavens. God is the greatest of painters. Earth 
and air, sea and sky declare his power, his 'wisdom 
and his love. " In his hand are the deep places of 
the earth ; the strength of the hills is his also. The 
sea is his, and he made it; and his hands formed 
the dry land." 

This truth led the psalmist immediately to cry out : 
" Oh come, let us worship and bow down ; let us kneel 
before the Lord our Maker." In heaven the absence 
of the sea is cause for praise. "Why is this? What 
is the meaning of this figurative language? This is 
an interesting question, and to it a definite answer 
can be given. 

I. The sea, in the conception of the ancient He- 



NO MORE SEA. 171 

brews, stood for separation between individuals and 
nations ; but in heaven there will be no such separa- 
tion. The Hebrews were not a seafaring people. 
David had a varied experience as a shepherd, a 
soldier, an outlaw, a courtier, a poet and a king ; but 
he was never a sailor. With all his wonderful ad- 
ventures, he seems never to have had a personal ex- 
perience of either the delights or the dangers of the 
sea. Solomon with all his means of pleasure does 
not seem ever to have owned a yacht. The man in 
those early days who had been to Ophir or Tarshish 
would be a hero on his return. Men, women and 
children would sit at his feet to hear the story of his 
wonderful exploits. 

Still, beautiful allusions to the sea are found in the 
writings of Hebrew prophets and poets. From the 
mountains of Palestine they could look down on the 
changeful Mediterranean in her different moods. 
They often watched the tempest ploughing the sea 
into foam, and dashing it in fury on the rocky face 
of Carmel ; and thus it came to pass that often the 
divine message of the sacred writers was delivered 
in the sublime imagery of the deep. To express the 
idea of great sorrow the psalmist speaks of deep call- 
ing unto deep, wave following wave, and billows 
going over his soul. 

Christ's dominion is represented as extending from 
sea to sea, and the glory of heaven is as the sound of 



m DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

many waters. No writers have better described the 
majesty of the sea when " the stormy wind which lift- 
eth up the waves thereof." This is especially illus- 
trated in the 107th Psalm. All commentators are 
agreed that this is the most highly finished and 
thoroughly poetic of all the pictures of human de- 
liverance. It is, as Perowne suggests, a landsman's 
picture ; but yet that of one who knew much of the 
dangers of the deep. We have the waves run- 
ning mountains high; then the weakness of hu- 
man skill, then the joy of the calm, and finally 
the desired haven. The same author quotes Ad- 
dison in the Spectator as saying that he prefers 
this description of a ship in a storm before any 
other he has met with ; and he adds : " How much 
more comfortable as well as rational, is this system 
of the psalmist than the Pagan scheme in Virgil and 
other poets, where one deity is represented as raising 
a storm and another as laying it ! Were we only to 
consider the sublime in this piece of poetry, what 
can be nobler than the idea it gives us of the Su- 
preme Being thus raising a tumult among the ele- 
ments, and recovering them out of their confusion ; 
thus troubling and becalming nature?" 

To-day the sea is not thought of as a line of separa- 
tion ; for now it is the highway of nations. Now on 
its surface go the great ships ; and far down on its 
bed lies the cable which makes " the world a whis- 



NO MORE SEA. 173 

pering gallery." But still on earth separations exist. 
Duty often places us on the earth at great distances 
from our friends ; and there is a sea lying between 
time and eternity which our friends cannot cross to 
come to us, nor we, when in life, to go to them. 
Although we listen ever so intently we cannot hear 
their voices ; although we wait ever so patiently we 
cannot see their forms. A cold, dark sea rolls be- 
tween us and them. There is no cable at its bottom; 
there is no ship on its surface. Thank God, the day 
is coming when there shall be no more sea. When 
the angel shall stand upon the sea and upon the 
earth and shall say that there shall be time no 
longer ; then the sea also shall be no more. 

There are separations in the social world. Great 
chasms exist in society. Caste distinctions unfortu- 
nately exist. The spirit of the world divides society 
horizontally, each layer being allied to its kindred 
layer in the social scale. The Spirit of Christ divides 
society vertically; it cuts through all the layers. It 
recognizes every man's manhood; it estimates men 
not according to what they have, but according to 
what they are. Men of the world have talked much 
of " Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. " These have 
been catch-words of bloody revolutions. They have 
been alike the inspiration of noble endeavors and of 
satanic ambitions. But the sea still flows on, now 
calmly, now wildly, between different classes in 



174 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

social life. The Church of Christ is the true leveller 
of social conditions ; it levels society by lifting the 
down-trodden; it levels upward. When the Spirit 
of Christ prevails the spirit of true Liberty, Equality 
and Fraternity will prevail. With all its faults, the 
Russian Church sets a good example in that in its 
public worship all classes are on a level before God. 
Princes and peasants bow together at the same altar. 
This Church of ours stands for this Christian idea. 
Here there is in this sense no sea ; here there are no 
class distinctions. The rich and the poor meet to- 
gether and learn that the Lord is the Maker of them 
all. When Christ is fully recognized on earth there 
shall be no more sea between the various classes on 
earth; and in heaven, in the largest sense, in this 
respect there is no more sea. 

There are also on earth separations in the intel- 
lectual world. Some men live apart from their fel- 
lows in lofty philosophical speculations ; they live in 
an ideal world. They are in advance of their age; 
they wander in solitariness among the mountain 
peaks of thought. Great superiority must always 
pay the penalty of loneliness ; these men others will 
leave severely alone, or reluctantly follow, or vio- 
lently oppose. The heart of such thinkers is lonely 
within them ; a sea flows about them. But the day 
is coming for them, if they be pure in heart as they 
are clear in thought, when there shall be no sea. 



NO MORE SEA. 175 

The day is coming when all earnest students of truth 
shall be enthroned as kings in truth's vast and glorious 
realm. Between many Christians there now flows a 
sea. Differing denominational views separate them ; 
different degrees of attainment in the divine life are 
also barriers. Some grovel ; others soar. Some live 
in the valleys ; others on the mountain top. Some 
in the porter's lodge; others in the king's palace. 
Some live among transfiguration splendors; others 
only in the deep shadows of Gethsemane. Days of 
harmony, of development, and of exaltation are com- 
ing. Drawing nearer to Christ all true disciples will 
draw nearer to one another, and even on the earth 
they shall have foretastes of the harmony of heaven. 
II. The sea stands for mystery; in heaven mys- 
teries will largely pass away. The sea is mysterious 
in its volume and its movements. Three-quarters 
of the surface of the globe are covered with it. The 
psalmist is right when he speaks of " the abundance 
of the sea ;" the poets are wrong who speak of " the 
wild waste of waters," and of the "barren, barren 
sea." It is not barren; it is not a lawless mass of 
surging waters. It is subject still to the voice of God. 
The sea prevents" the earth from becoming a waste. 
It furnishes water for thirsty souls, and for the 
parched grasses, plants, and trees; its warm cur- 
rents make great tracts, which otherwise would 
be utterly unfit for man, habitable and fruitful. 



176 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

Think of the balancing of forces which keeps the 
ocean in its bed while the world spins upon its axis 
forty times faster than flies the swiftest train. The 
moon as she moves through the heavens controls the 
tidal waves of the deep. Let any of these great 
movements be disarranged and the sea would rush 
upon the land and all human life would be destroyed. 
Creation is a mystery. Life in its origin is a 
problem which godless biologists can never solve. 
The ways of Providence are past finding out in our 
present state of ignorance. Redemption is a sublime 
mystery of love and grace. Now we see through a 
glass darkly : hereafter eye to eye. Now we know 
in part : hereafter even as we are known. Now we 
know Christ as we are : hereafter we shall know him 
as he is. Now we see Christ in his word and works : 
hereafter we shall see him face to face. Then in that 
beatific vision we shall know him as we are known. 
All hail the day when mysteries shall disappear and 
when the glory of the knowledge of God and his 
works shall flood our souls and rejoice our hearts ! 

III. The sea stands for danger; in heaven there 
shall be no more sea. Perhaps, to the ancient He- 
brews, the sea was a symbol of destructive power 
more than anything else. It is indeed a fearful 
monster ; it is terrible in its wrath, and awful in its 
majesty. It charms and terrifies; it smiles in joy 
and frowns in anger. It allures like a mother ; it 



NO MORE SEA. 177 

destroys like a demon. Some of the ancients com- 
pared it to a great animal, its tides being its breath- 
ing-times. The comparison is appropriate; the sea 
opens its mouth and swallows its victims; then it 
smiles and looks innocent as a child. It is cunning, 
deceptive, terrible. Its waves, as they break in the 
evening along the shores, seem like huge serpents 
gleaming and hissing. It has its moods; sailors 
understand them and guard against each fickle 
change. The ancients were comparatively helpless ; 
they were without steam, without compass, without 
skill. No wonder the apostle Paul and his com- 
panions " were driven up and down in Adria. " The 
sea broke the ships and destroyed the lives of the 
early Hebrew mariners ; they reeled to and fro, they 
staggered like drunken men, they were at their wit's 
end. They saw the wonders of the Lord in the deep ; 
and they trembled at his great power. 

And with all our boasted progress, the sea is still 
often our master. Within recent years, many great 
ships have gone to the bottom. "We are humiliated 
in the presence of these great disasters. Four o'clock 
in the morning has been lately the fatal hour for great 
ships. At that hour the majestic " Oregon" received 
the fatal blow ; at that hour, a few weeks ago, the 
" Thingvalla" and the " Geiser," sister ships, ran into 
each other ; at that hour the watches are changed and 

the men are not fully awake to danger and duty. As 

12 



178 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

a result, the Cunard Line has recently changed its 
watches, so as to give all the officers longer hours of 
continuous sleep during the twenty-four. Life stands 
for danger. Physical dangers abound; they make 
existence a constant struggle. With the dangers 
from false faiths, we are sadly familiar. As men 
believe, so are they. Moral shipwrecks lie along 
life's course. But the day is coming when the sea of 
danger will utterly disappear. We remember that 
at the funeral of an eloquent preacher of the gospel, 
his widow was surprisingly calm and even happy. 
To an inquirer as to the cause of her composure, she 
said: "Thank God, he is safe now; temptation can 
never reach him again." He had fallen under the 
power of the intoxicating cup. He repented of his 
sin, and was restored to his place in the church of 
God ; but he trembled constantly on the edge of the 
precipice. Now he had gone upward; the danger 
was over, and his wife was joyous in the thought that 
temptation would never again reach him. Once 
there trod the waves of the Galilean Sea their Lord 
and Master. He who trod the waters of that sea and 
bade its boisterous waves "be still," still rules the 
stormy sea of life. " Lord God of Hosts, who is 
like unto thee? Thou rulest the raging of the 
sea; when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest 
them." 

There is a Pilot who can bear us safely over the 



NO MORE SEA. 179 

sea to the haven of that land where the sea itself 
shall be no more. Let us then in simple faith utter 
this prayer : 

"Jesus, Saviour, pilot me 

Over life's tempestuous sea ; 
Unknown waves before me roll, 

Hiding rock and treacherous shoal ; 
Chart and compass came from thee ; 
Jesus, Saviour, pilot me. " 



XI11. 
Zhe Cbrtstian's Certain Comfort 

WE have just crossed the boundary line between 
the old year and the new. We would be more 
or less than human did not solemn thoughts fill our 
minds to-day. Longfellow, in his "Evangeline," 
speaks of the strange fears of coming ill which at 
times we all feel, and adds : 

"As, at the tramp of a horse's hoof on the turf of the prairies, 
Far in advance are closed the leaves of the shrinking mi- 
mosa, 
So, at the hoof-beats of fate, with sad forebodings of evil, 
Shrinks and closes the heart, ere the stroke of doom has at- 
tained it." 

Perhaps our hearts tremble as we begin the new 
year and listen for the hoof -beats of God's possible 
providences before the year shall close. What mes- 
sengers shall come ? Shall some dark shadow fall over 
home or heart? Who can tell? Thank God, no one 
can tell. We go out into the opening year trusting 
in his divine care and almighty love. 

It has been for some time our custom to give on the 

first Sunday morning of the new year a passage of 

180 



THE CHRISTIAN'S CERTAIN COMFORT 181 

Scripture which may serve as a motto-text for the 
year. It is known that these new-year texts, be- 
cause of the emphasis which the occasion gives them, 
have been a vade mecum to many ; and that they 
have made joy more joyous, and sorrow less grievous. 
Some of our number who are absent from us send for 
them regularly, and are much helped by them during 
the year ; and some have them, as the result of vari- 
ous artistic devices, always before their eyes in their 
homes. Their selection has come, therefore, to be a 
matter of careful thought and earnest prayer. The 
passage chosen for this year is this : 

"... Surely I know that it shall be ivell with them that fear 
God, which fear before him." — Eccles. viii. 12. 

In the former part of this verse the character and 
condition of sinners are contrasted with those of the 
righteous. However long the sinner lives in sin, 
and however prosperous he may seem to be, yet it 
shall be ill with him ; but however it may seem some- 
times to be with the righteous man, in the long run 
it shall be well with him. It will readily be admitted 
by all that Solomon was a competent witness. He 
had tasted the so-called sweetness of sin in all its 
forms ; he had partaken of its various cups even to 
satiety. Repeatedly has he given us the deliberate 
results of his wide and varied experiences. His 
words ought to have great weight. This text is well 



182 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

calculated to check the folly and presumption of the 
sinner, and to comfort the righteous man in the trials 
of life ; and especially in the apparent delay of jus- 
tice in permitting the triumphs of the ungodly. 

The Persons Described. 

Notice, in the first place, the persons who are here 
described — "them that fear God." This is in the 
Word of God a common designation of the people of 
God. The fear of the Lord is emphasized as the be- 
ginning of wisdom. What is meant by this fear? 
What kind of fear is it? It is. certainly not servile 
fear. It may have something of that character 
in its beginning; but it does not long continue in 
that atmosphere. Experience proves that many a 
Christian begins his Christian life with the fear of 
God in its lowest sense, the fear of punishment, as 
its inspiring motive. Better that than a life of indif- 
erence to truth and God. The Bible does appeal to 
that element ; we are taught to fear him who can de- 
stroy both soul and body in hell. The heart has many 
doors; over one is written Faith, over another Hope, 
over another Love. The Word of God knocks at each 
of these doors. In the case of one man the heart is 
entered by one door ; in the case of another man by 
another door. The man who is learning a new lan- 
guage, or learning to speak his own correctly, speaks 
for a time laboriously under the fear of violating 



THE CHRISTIAN'S CERTAIN COMFORT. 183 

some grammatical rule ; but after a time the knowl- 
edge of the language becomes a part of his very na- 
ture, and he rises above the fear of violating the rules 
of grammar and comes into the love of correct speech. 
So, starting in the Christian life on the low plane of 
fear in its lower senses, we may rise into the perfect 
love of God which casteth out all fear; we learn to 
love truth, to love holiness and to love God for their 
own sake ; we would serve God if there were no hell 
to be shunned, and no heaven to be won ; and we 
come finally to think little of either as motives in life 
and work, for then the love of Christ constraineth us. 
At this stage in our Christian lives we fear simply 
lest we may offend God, our Father, Friend, and 
Redeemer. 

This latter fear is truly filial ; it is the fear of a son 
and not that of a slave. Christians are the sons and 
daughters of the Lord Almighty. They have re- 
ceived the adoption of sons ; they cry, Abba, Father. 
Theirs is a holy, humble, fiducial fear; it is a loving 
confidence ; it is an affectionate trust. When a man 
is adopted into God's family and is living in full and 
blessed consciousness of that adoption, he will serve 
God because of the joy of that service. He is then 
a new man; he is influenced by new motives; he is 
under the control of the constraining love of Christ. 
It is a false pride which leads a man to call himself 
a slave when God calls him a son. The Prodigal 



184 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

Son expected to say on his return : " Father, I have 
sinned against heaven, and before Thee, and am no 
more worthy to be called thy son ; make me as one of 
thy hired servants;" but when his father's kiss was 
on his cheek and the sense of forgiving love in his 
heart, all the words which he had conned over were 
not uttered. He says, indeed: "Father, I have 
sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no 
more worthy to be called thy son, " but there he stops. 
The Father's voice is instantly heard saying: " Bring 
forth the best robe, and put it on him." Filial love 
is now filling his soul. When Louis the Fourteenth 
would test the courtesy of Lord Chesterfield — or, ac- 
cording to some authorities, the Earl of Stair — he had 
his carriage door opened and asked the nobleman 
to step in first, and he immediately stepped in, leav- 
ing the king to follow. Louis complimented him for 
having maintained his reputation for gentlemanli- 
ness, and his reply was, " I hope I am too much of 
a gentleman to refuse the request of a king." We 
ought to be too humble to refuse the request of the 
King of Heaven. True humility takes the place 
which God gives; to refuse is not humility but 
culpable unbelief. 

It is genuine, sincere, honest, and hearty fear 
which God's people possess. This characteristic of 
their fear is taught us by the latter part of the verse 
which says, "which fear before him." This descrip- 



THE CHRISTIAN'S CERTAIN COMFORT. 185 

tion suggests the transparent, the godly fear which is 
here commended. It is far removed from the fear of 
the hypocrite. This true fear comes from the bot- 
tom of the soul. It is genuine even in the presence 
of the omnipresent and omniscient God. This is the 
only religion which endures the test; it will bear 
the scrutiny of men and angels, of time and eternity, 
and will receive at last the approval of God. 

The Promise Here Given. 

Observe, in the second place, the promise concern- 
ing the people of God : " It shall be well with them." 
This is a modest and, we may say, inadequate put- 
ting of this great certainty. Much more is implied 
than is expressed. Often this is the strongest way 
of stating a great truth ; conscious of its greatness 
the speaker designedly expresses it only partially. 
Neither saint nor seraph can tell all that is included 
in this " well. " Ask Enoch ; ask Paul. What shall 
the}' answer? Only this: "Eye hath not seen, nor 
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, 
the things which God hath prepared for them that 
love him." 

It is not said that believers shall not have their 
share in the ordinary trials of life. The Bible no- 
where promises us exemption from these trials. It 
does not assure us that we shall not go into the 
furnace, nor into the deep waters ; but it does promise 



186 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

that the fire shall not consume us and the waters 
shall not overflow us. In the midst of the trial it 
shall still be well with us. By our side in the 
furnace there shall be One who is like the Son of 
God, and we shall come out without even the smell of 
fire on our garments. It is not said that Christians 
shall not have extraordinary trials. Christianity de- 
velops manhood ; it vastly enlarges the sphere of life. 
It gives a broader surface across which the winds of 
adversity may sweep. It gives greater possibilities 
of enjoyment ; and these make greater trials certain. 
A Christian man is higher, and deeper, and broader 
than other men are. He is more fully developed in 
all his capacities both for joy and sorrow. Christ 
suffered unspeakably more than any other man who 
ever lived could suffer. He had in himself all the 
nobleness of man and all the gentleness of woman ; 
he had vaster capacities of suffering than other men 
possess.. Stoical indifference to pain is an evidence 
of a coarse and brutal nature. To feel, and yet to 
do and dare, is to be truly noble. Intellectual attain- 
ment and spiritual culture increase the number and 
exquisiteness of our faculties and capacities. The 
more our natures are developed the greater also will 
be our responsibilities. Loyalty to God put Joseph 
into prison; made Elijah face cruel Ahab and 
wicked Jezebel; drove Daniel into a den of lions; 
hurled the three faithful Hebrews into the seven 



THE CHRISTIAN'S CERTAIN COMFORT. 187 

times heated furnace; put Peter into tho common 
prison and Paul and Silas into the inner prison and 
made their feet fast in the stocks. But it was still 
well with them. This fact is the glory of our 
faith; this is the joy of our life in God. Joseph 
finds his prison the vestibule to the palace of the 
Pharaohs; Elijah's fiery mission is but the prelude 
to the chariot of fire and glorious translation. From 
Bunyan's prison goes forth his Pilgrim to carry his 
name and his Lord's to the ends of the earth; from 
Luther's castle prison goes forth the German Bible, 
the bulwark of the German throne and nation, and 
of Protestantism throughout the world. It is not 
said that believers shall not often be in an evil case. 
This condition is inevitable. They shall at times 
seem to be utterly overthrown ; but they shall still 
triumph in God. Quaintly has it been said that all 
" God's people are like birds : they sing best in cages. " 
Out of their deepest sorrows come their sweetest 
songs ; when most bruised they send forth the most 
fragrant odors. From her bed of excruciating pain 
Anne Steele sent out her hymns of faith, hope, and 
love. But for her sorrow the Church had not been 
cheered by her "Father! whate'er of earthly bliss." 
God's people know that all things work together for 
good to those who love him. They know that no 
form of trial, that neither death nor life shall be able 
to separate them from the love of God which is in 



188 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

Christ Jesus their Lord. Looking up to God in 
deepest grief they can say : 

"If from thy ordeal's heated bars 
Our feet are seamed with crimson scars, 
Thy will be done ! " 

Assured Knowledge Expressed. 

Notice, in the third place, the absolute certainty 
here expressed: "Yet surety I know." There is 
power in absolute certainty. There are those who 
magnify and multiply their doubts. To doubt, they 
think, is an evidence of unusual intellectual acumen ; 
it is rather a proof of mental feebleness. Doubt is 
the gray dawn of the morning ; faith is the splendor 
of the noonday sun. Doubt is childhood; faith is 
manhood, manhood in its prime and glory. Paul 
rang out his " I know. " The blind man who had 
been cured triumphantly said, "I know." The 
Apostle John confidently repeats, "We know." To- 
day, there are disciples of certain schools who can 
only say, "perhaps," "possibly," "perad venture." 
These men are agnostics; that is, know-nothings. 
Ho man ought to preach his doubts ; audiences have 
doubts enough of their own. If some of us were to 
preach all that we do not know we would have an 
endless theme. If we have doubts, let us tell them 
to God ; if we have truths, let us tell them to men. 
Thank God for men and women who are know-some- 



THE CHRISTIAN'S CERTAIN COMFORT. 189 

things ! In the midst of earthly loss and pain they can 
say, "We know it shall be well." 

The inspired preacher had good grounds for his 
knowledge. Because of God's character men may be 
sure that it will be well with those who fear him. 
God must be right ; God must do right. One wrong 
on God's part and he would no longer be God. One 
wrong act would overturn his throne ; a God who can 
sin is no God. If God could sin there would be a 
world without a God, and a kingdom without a 
throne. His highest claim to our homage is his in- 
finite rightness. Mere power on God's part could 
not compel homage on our part. God, by his power, 
might crush me, but cannot compel my love; but 
when he shows me a Father's love, how can I, except 
I be an utter ingrate, withhold from him a son's 
gratitude? "Worship God," said the angel to the 
overawed Apostle John. Why? The completest 
answer is, because God is infinitely the best Being 
in the universe. If you can find a better being than 
God, worship that other being. The history of God's 
people emphasizes also the truth that it is well with 
them that fear God. The experience of each be- 
liever proves it for himself. Do you fear God? If 
not, begin to-day. If you do fear him, rest sweetly 
on his great and precious promise. 

Let us, like Enoch, walk with God through the 
months and days of this new year. And to walk 



190 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

with God we must go in the same direction; two 
cannot walk together except they be agreed. Enoch 
walked and walked with God till they reached the 
limits of time and earth ; and still kept on walking 
with him ; walked into eternity, into heaven ; walks 
with him still. Some who begin the year with us 
will end it with God. God alone knows what of 
trial this year has in store for each of us. But above 
all the sounds of life's trials shall be our note of 
triumph in God who will bring us off more than 
conquerors; and in eternity the sweetest strain of 
our immortal song shall be, " He hath done all things 
well." 



XIV. 
Seeking ant> "Receiving. 

"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteous- 
ness ; and all these things shall be added unto you." — Matt. 
vi. 33. 

THIS text is a part of the Sermon on the Mount. 
That sermon is one of the most solemn and 
instructive portions of the Bible. It lifts Jesus 
Christ above all other teachers of the world ; it alone 
furnishes a strong argument for his divinity. If 
we deny his divinity it will be impossible to explain 
his wisdom as a teacher as seen in this wonderful 
discourse. The Christ of the Cross does not appear 
very conspicuously here; but the Christ of the 
Throne here reigns gloriously. He lays down the 
laws of his new kingdom ; he places before us the 
exalted standard of ideal perfection which that king- 
dom demands. This discourse is, as I understand it, 
an exhortation unto repentance. It is, in this respect, 
like the instruction which Christ gave the lawyer 

who stood up tempting him and asking: "What 

191 



192 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Before him Jesus 
lifted the standard of the ideal life and character. 
The design of the sermon is to lead all men to cry 
out with the disciples when in the storm on the 
Galilean Sea: "Lord, save us: we perish!" Every 
honest man who reads this discourse must feel that 
without divine help he can never attain to the perfec- 
tion of conduct and character here enjoined. Men 
often say that they do not want the doctrinal religion 
often preached in our pulpits and enforced in many 
parts of the Bible ; that they want only the religion 
of the Sermon on the Mount. It must be said that 
these men do not know whereof they speak. The 
Sermon on the Mount does not lower the standard 
of life and duty — it exalts it. The thoughtful moral- 
ist who said, " God save me at the day of judgment 
from the Sermon on the Mount, " better understood 
its high, broad, and deep spiritual teaching. This 
sermon is really designed to lead every reader to say, 
with the publican, " God be merciful to me a sinner." 
1. In studying this text let us notice, in the first 
place, what we are to seek — " the kingdom of God 
and his righteousness." In previous verses Christ 
prohibited in various ways the undue seeking after 
the things of the world. He earnestly rebukes all 
undue solicitude about the things of this life. But 
thus far his instructions on this point have been 
negative ; now, however, he advances a step. These 



SEEKING AND RECEIVING. 193 

world objects are not to be avoided by a mere nega- 
tion ; by simply attempting to abstain from unneces- 
sary anxiety and unbelief no one will be likely to 
succeed. The best way to correct the evil here re- 
buked is to seek to do the good here suggested. The 
best way to get rid of undue care about unnecessary 
things is to have a due care about necessary things. 
The best way to drive out darkness is to let in the 
light ; the best way to keep evil out of the heart is to 
fill it with good. Right seeking is the true remedy 
against false seeking. Christ was a wise teacher. 
He recognized the fundamental laws of moral and 
mental action. He needed not that any one should 
tell him, for he knew what was in man. This is 
the principle which Dr. Chalmers emphasized when 
he talked of " the expulsive power of a new affec- 
tion." If we subordinate the affairs of this life to 
the concerns of the other life, both lives will be 
brought into their proper relations, and both then 
will be taken at their true value. It will also be 
observed that the subordination of this life to the 
other does not exclude a proper consideration of the 
affairs of this life; on the contrary, it includes and 
emphasizes their right consideration and secures their 
fullest performance. Such subordination is true wis- 
dom ; its absence brings chaos and ends in eternal loss. 
We understand by " the kingdom of God and his 

righteousness" the seeking and observing of the prin- 
13 



194 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

ciples of that kingdom which Christ was about to set 
up. Righteousness here is not to be taken in the 
technical and theological sense of the imputed right- 
eousness of Christ — at least, not primarily; it is, 
rather, seeking to do God's will, to observe what he 
esteems right, what he has made right, what is 
right. It is a constant subjection of our will to 
God's; a performance of right things in a right 
spirit. Seeking in this way to promote God's king- 
dom would at the same time most effectually promote 
our true interests, spiritual and eternal, temporal 
and secular. So far as the disciples were concerned 
Christ would say : " You are pupils in my school ; 
continue to live for me ; make my will the law of 
your life." So far as others in his audience were 
concerned, Christ here says : " Enter on my service ; 
enlist under my banner; this is the great concern; 
this is the one thing needful; seek the purity of 
heart and the holiness of life which God requires and 
which you must possess in order to become the sub- 
jects of my kingdom." In a word, by the kingdom 
of God and his righteousness, I understand Christ 
to say to us, " Accept salvation through me, submit 
to my claims; give me the homage of your hearts." 
This is the demand which Christ makes of us to-day 
in this Scripture. 

2. Notice that this great good is to be sought — 
"seek ye first," etc. The word translated seek is a 



SEEKING AND RECEIVING. 195 

strong one ; it means seek earnestly, intensely, again 
and again ; it includes the idea of eagerness, solici- 
tude, importunity. So elsewhere Christ tells us to 
strive, to agonize, as did the wrestler or the racer, to 
enter in at the strait gate. The gate is strait, and so 
difficult to enter ; the way is narrow, and so difficult 
to continue therein. To be lost needs no searching 
for the way, for all are in it already. To go with 
the current is easy ; to oppose it is difficult. Men 
who float with the tide have no proper conception of 
its force. A dead fish can float, but it takes a live 
one to go up stream. 

This law of seeking in order to finding is in har- 
mony with the rule of life in every department of 
effort. If a man wants money, he must seek it ; if 
he wants learning, he must pay its price in hard 
study. Ignorance he may have without effort. To 
raise thistles, a man need not prepare the ground nor 
sow the seed ; to raise wheat, he must do both. Toil 
is evermore the standard of value. Cost and worth 
are ever close neighbors. Only by the rugged path 
of toil do men reach the heights of great attainment ; 
only by paying the price of heroic effort do they 
write their names high in the temple of fame. We 
are all familiar with the answer of Euclid to King 
Ptolemy Lagus when he asked, " Is there not a shorter 
and oasier way to the study of geometry than that 
which you have laid down in your Elements?" His 



196 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

reply was, "There is no royal road to geometry." 
There is no road to heaven but that of sacrifice, 
that of cross-bearing; we must go in this narrow 
way or not at all. But it is also a way of joy, a path 
of pleasantness and peace. You must not expect to 
become a Christian by accident. That blessed ex- 
perience must be the result of deliberate determina- 
tion, of intelligent seeking, and of faithful enduring. 
This truth is earnestly affirmed in many parts of 
Christ's teaching. Christ's honesty is worthy of 
commendation. He clearly lays down the conditions 
of discipleship ; we must take up the cross and follow 
him. 

3. We next learn in the text the order of our seek- 
ing: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his 
righteousness. " Here is declared the right order in 
which our seeking of earthly and heavenly things is 
to take place. The care of the soul is to take prece- 
dence of all other care ; and the affairs of this life are 
thus to be made secondary to those of the life to 
come. Just here many make their fatal mistake. 
They give earthly things the first place in their 
thought ; they set God and his claims aside entirely, 
or give them a subordinate place. They desire the 
advantages of religion, but they are unwilling to 
perform its duties. Like the rich young man, they 
wish to inherit eternal life, but they are not willing 
to take up their cross and follow their Lord. When 



SEEKING AND RECEIVING. 197 

the claims of religion are pressed upon them like 
Felix, they say: "Go thy way for this time." Now 
if religion be not worth everything it is worth 
nothing. Look the matter squarely in the face ; 
decide it like honorable and sensible men. If God's 
claims are just, they are supreme. Give him the 
first place in your heart. Dethrone every idol; 
enthrone the Lord Jesus. Let us' stop shilly-shally- 
ing. Let us not be like the heathen colonists whom 
"the .king of Assyria brought from Babylon, and 
from Cuthah, and from Avah, and from Hamath," 
and placed in the cities of Samaria instead of the 
children of Israel. It is said of them, " They feared 
the Lord and served their own gods." This descrip- 
tion is unfortunately true of too many who call them- 
selves Christians. Oh, for a holy enthusiasm in 
Christ's cause ! Tradition says that the artist Cor- 
reggio, when young, saw with rapturous joy a paint- 
ing by Raphael — it is said to have been St. Cecilia at 
Bologna — upon which he gazed in transports of 
delight. His soul drank in its beauty as flowers 
drink moisture from the dew. Artistic genius was 
enkindled within him ; the blood rushed to his brow 
and fire flashed from his eyes as he cried out : " I, 
too, am a painter !" That conviction upheld him in 
his dark hours ; it blended with his colors ; it guided 
his pencil; it glowed on his canvas.. His art was 
first in his thought and attainment. Success crowned 



198 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

his untiring zeal and his heroic toils. Titian, on wit- 
nessing his production, exclaimed: "Were I not 
Titian, I would wish to be Correggio. " The word 
enthusiasm comes from a Greek word which means 
to be inspired or possessed of God. If Christ be in 
the soul a holy enthusiasm must mark our lives. If 
the love of Christ constrain us, we cannot but speak 
of what we have seen and felt of that mighty love. 
Away with lukewarmness ! A half-way Christian 
is an object of contempt to devils and of pity to 
angels ! Let us put God first. Around him let the 
affairs of this life revolve as do planets about the 
sun. Other things are to be sought in their proper 
time and place, but God first. He cannot, he will 
not share his glory with any. The first command- 
ment thunders in our ears, "Thou shalt have no 
other gods before me." We may have other objects 
of love, but not before God ; if we do, we are idola- 
ters. The man who puts this world first is like the 
man who gathers pebbles while pearls lie unnoticed 
at his feet. Money, learning, position, power — these 
are right, these are to be sought. But each in its 
own order. We are to seek God first in time. Let 
youth be consecrated to his service ; let its first love 
be his ; let it in its sweetness and freshness be laid 
on his altar. Seek God first in affection. I say, be 
a Christian to-day in every drop of your blood, in 
every thought of your heart, and in every act of 



SEEKING AND RECEIVING. 199 

life. Despise yourself that you have so long been 
double-minded and unstable. Break with the world ; 
cleave unto God. To every temptation of sin and 
Satan give a ringing NO ! Those are stirring words 
of Lord Macaulay, uttered during the agitation of 
a turbulent political contest at Leeds. He was 
anxious, of course, to secure the votes of the electors, 
but he would not stoop to play a double part. To 
the electors he plainly declared his opinions, but he 
would give no pledges. He thought it as improper 
that an Englishman should be courted and fawned 
upon in his capacity of elector as in his capacity of 
juryman. Much as he might want their votes, he 
far more highly valued their esteem; and he con- 
cludes with this sentence : " It is not necessary to my 
happiness that I should sit in Parliament, but it is 
necessary to my happiness that I should possess, in 
Parliament or out of Parliament, the consciousness of 
having done what is right." 

4. Notice the reward which Christ gives to those 
who seek aright: "And all these things shall be 
added unto you." By seeking God first you shall 
have the kingdom, and over and above you shall 
have all other necessary things. A great problem 
confronts every man : How shall I win both worlds? 
Christ here gives us the solution: Seek first the 
kingdom of God. Having done that, over and above, 
you shall have food and raiment. Great wealth is 



200 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

not promised, but necessary things are. If a man 
seeks God, he can then cast all his care on him, 
leaving the bestowment or denial of worldly things 
to the allotment of his wisdom and love. An old 
writer, in illustrating this thought, says : " He who 
buys goods has paper and pack-thread given him 
into the bargain." Solomon asked for wisdom, and 
God, pleased with his choice, said: "And I have 
also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both 
riches and honor; so that there shall not be any 
among the kings like unto thee all thy days." Paul, 
in writing to Timothy, says : " Godliness is profitable 
unto all things, having promise of the life that now 
is, and of that which is to come." What a blessed 
change would be wrought in the world if this truth 
were grounded in our hearts and illustrated in our 
lives ! It was a common saying among the Jews, 
" Seek that to which other things are added ;" and 
this truth was illustrated in this way : A king said 
to his particular friend, " Ask what thou wilt and I 
shall give it thee." He thought within himself, if 
I ask to be made a general I shall get my request ; 
but I will ask something to which many and better 
things are added. He therefore said, " Give me thy 
daughter to wife." This he did knowing that all 
the dignities of the kingdom would be added to his 
request. 

This was a wise man. The man who thinks to 



SEEKING AND RECEIVING. 201 

serve God and mammon must fail utterly. It is 
impossible to unite these two forms of service. God 
first, this is Christ's law. God's kingdom stands. 
They who live for Christ live for the eternities. 
Their life takes hold of that within the veil. Not 
one jot or one tittle of Christ's promise shall fail. 
The mount on which he stood when he uttered his 
immortal discourse we know not ; the audience that 
listened is gone; kingdoms have risen and fallen, 
but Christ's words stand. It is eternally true that 
they that seek God first shall have the mastery over 
both worlds. 

Prepare in the heart, in the home, and in the 
entire life the first place for royal majesty. Make 
room to-day for Jesus. Turn out every idol. His 
place is on the heart's throne. Room to-day for 
Jesus ! At the heart's door he knocks for admission. 
Rise! Draw back the bolt. Give Jesus welcome. 
He will be thy guest, and then he will graciously 
become thy royal host. All fulness dwells in 
Christ. To the sick he is a physician; to the 
hungry, bread ; to the thirsty, water. In darkness 
he is a sun ; in heat he is a shade. Stars and pearls, 
rocks and hills are drawn upon to describe his glory. 
Earth and air, sea and sky bring their noblest treas- 
ures and lay them at his feet. O Matchless Lily, O 
Fragrant Rose, O Clustering Vine, O Ineffable 
Christ, come and claim us to-day as thine own ! 



202 DIVINE BALUSTRADES 

If Christ were the preacher to-day, this platform 
the mount, and you his audience, out of the fulness 
of his divine mind and the tenderness of his loving 
heart, he would say : " But seek ye first the kingdom 
of God and his righteousness, and all these things 
shall be added unto you." God help us all to do so 
here and now for his name's sake. Amen. 



XV. 

anticipator? Blessings, 

"For thou preventest him ivith the blessings of goodness: 
thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head. " — Psalm 
xxi. 3. 

I 1ST the preceding Psalm we have a prayer that 
David, who is going forth to war, may be vic- 
torious. In this Psalm we have a song of thanks- 
giving for the victory which has been won. Pe- 
rowne describes the last Psalm as a litany before the 
king went forth to battle, and this one as the Te 
Deum on his return. The occasion which gave rise 
to the Psalm is variously understood. Some say 
that it celebrated the victory over Sennacherib; 
others that it is a song of thanksgiving for the 
recovery of Hezekiah. Still others consider it to be 
a song of rejoicing because of David's victory over 
the Ammonites, which 'ended in the capture of the 
royal city of Kabbah, the crown of whose king David 
put on his own brow. But without stopping to dis- 
cuss this matter further in detail, these two Psalms 

203 



204 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

are certainly complementary whatever the historical 
allusion. 

A single remark on the word " prevent" will throw 
light upon its meaning in the text. Literally the 
word signifies to go before, to anticipate. This is 
the meaning alike of the Latin word from which it 
comes,, and of the Hebrew word of which it is the 
translation. This also was the original meaning of 
the word prevent when our common translation of 
the Scriptures was made. We find this prayer in 
one of the old liturgies : " Prevent us, O Lord, in all 
our doings with thy most precious favor." The 
meaning of this petition is, that God would go 
before us or anticipate us in his mercy. Now, as 
we all know, the word prevent is used as meaning to 
stop, to hinder, to intercept. It is a sad commen- 
tary on our fallen human nature that the word 
should have so changed its meaning ; for the changed 
meaning clearly shows that men usually go before 
one another not to help but to hinder and to hurt. 
" Words are things, " as the fiery Mirabeau said in 
the French Assembly. There is a vast amount of 
history wrapped up in their changed meanings. 
Like Adam they have their fall. Moral qualities 
inhere in daily speech. The idea in this text is that 
God had gone before David, had anticipated him, 
had prepared blessings before they were asked or 
needed. This truth is taught whether we limit the 



ANTICIPATORY BLESSINGS. 205 

application of the Psalm to some signal victory, or 
refer it to the whole sweep of God's providential 
dealings with David. God's providences as related 
to us emphasize the same truth. This fact suggests 
a general law in God's relations to man; it gives 
us this topic : The Anticipatory Blessings of God. , 
1. These blessings are seen in creation — in creation 
generally, and in our own creation especially. The 
young of no creature come into the world so helpless 
as the young of the human species; but God so 
anticipates this fact that gentle hands and loving 
hearts make provision for this helplessness. Their 
manifest weakness appeals to our conscious strength. 
It has been said that " the undevout astronomer is 
mad." It may with equal truth be said that the 
undevout anatomist is mad. It is said that Galen, 
the celebrated physician, was at one time atheist- 
ically inclined, but that the careful study of the 
human frame, the usefulness of every part, the 
fitness of part to part, and the wonderful beauty of 
the whole, led him to question the truth of atheism, 
and finally to believe fully in God as Creator and 
Lord. He was a man of vast and varied attainments. 
Doubtless he was justified in speaking slightingly of 
the medical men of his time, and particularly of 
those in Rome, where during four years he won great 
applause for his skill as a practitioner and his 
success as an instructor. Eighty-three genuine 



206 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

medical works by his hand are extant, and many 
are supposed to have been lost. Tried by the 
standards of our time his theories no doubt would 
excite merriment, but for one thousand three hun- 
dred years his authority was law in the medical 
profession. It is said that he wrote a hymn 
in praise of the divine Creator. If we go for a 
little way into particulars in the study of the hu- 
man body we shall have many illustrations of God's 
anticipated beneficence. Think for a moment of 
the eye ! At first it is needless, but all its parts are 
even then perfect. God anticipates its subsequent 
uses. A distinguished scholar has affirmed that an 
examination of the eye is a cure for atheism. Dr. 
Paley, whom some of us carefully studied in 
academic days, reminds us that the eye is lodged in 
a strong, deep, and bony socket composed of seven 
different bones hollowed at their edges. It is shel- 
tered by eyebrows, which are ingenious and beauti- 
ful arches of hair which render valuable service in 
protecting the eyes from the moisture of the face. 
The lid defends the eye in many ways, gently pro- 
tecting it when open and then sweetly closing it in 
sleep. To keep it clean a liquid is especially pro- 
vided, and to carry off the superfluous brine a per- 
foration is ingeniously prepared. The ear no less 
than the eye is mechanically and scientifically 
adapted to its office. Many writers call attention to 



ANTICIPATORY BLESSINGS. 207 

the fac; that we can find no machine in which such 
complicated and flexible contrivances are found as in 
the human neck- Think also of the contrivances in 
the fore-arm, and of the complicated arrangements to 
permit of the enlargement and contraction of the 
chest in breathing ! Indeed, every joint and every 
part of the human system is a marvel of delicacy, 
power, and wisdom. We are wonderfully made. 
But of course I am not giving a lecture on anatomy, 
and so cannot go into these matters at length. The 
simple point here emphasized is that at the outset 
all these prospective contrivances were provided, God 
anticipating their subsequent use. Their relations as 
well as their adaptations are also anticipated. The 
eye is adapted to light, and the ear to sound; the 
wings of the bird to the air, and the fin of the fish to the 
water. These contrivances and designs prove the 
existence of the Contriver and Designer. They also 
illustrate the anticipatory goodness of the Designer ; 
in a thousand ways they manifest his beneficence. 
He has added pleasure to the exercise of our faculties 
above what was necessary to their continued exist- 
ence and intended function. Youth has pleasures of 
its own in its frolics and gambols ; age, pleasures of 
its own, dozing in its arm-chair, or quietly engaged 
in its appropriate activities. God soothes the mind 
and comforts the eye by robing the earth in its 
green mantle, while he expresses his beautiful 



208 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

thoughts in flowers of many colors. However widely 
we traverse the realm of nature we shall find that 
God in creation has gone before us with the bless- 
ings of his goodness. 

2. The same law is illustrated in Revelation. 
Men needed a revelation from God . Nature answered 
many of the deep questions of the human soul ; but, 
when confronted by some of the prof oundest problems 
of life, Nature is silent. The dying words of Goethe, 
"More light," express our need even when standing 
in the brightest light which Nature can give. God 
is a wise teacher ; the impartation of his knowledge 
always bears a relation to our ability to receive. 
Christ had many things to tell the disciples which 
they were unable to bear. There is always a ful- 
ness of time in God's revelations and providences. 
It comes to pass, therefore, that it was always at 
"sundry times and in divers manners" that the 
knowledge of God came to men. Robertson reminds 
us that the sundry times " is literally sundry parts — 
sections, not of time, but of the manner of the revela- 
tion. God gave his revelation in parts, piecemeal, 
as you teach children to spell a word, letter by letter, 
syllable by syllable, adding all at last together. God 
had a word to spell — his own name. By degrees he 
did it." The Bible is like some ancient castle. Dr. 
Stowe reminds us that Warwick Castle viewed from 
the outside is an immense pile of disjointed work of 



ANTICIPATORY BLESSINGS. 209 

four or five centuries,* and with many varieties of 
architecture, but within the apartments, although 
each is finished in the style of its own period, form a 
perfect and harmonious whole, making a desirable 
and convenient home. Cologne Cathedral on the 
banks of the "wide and winding Rhine," although 
founded in 1248, has just been completed. Its history 
is long and fascinating. The architect is unknown ; 
probably he will never be known, but his design 
after hundreds of years is carried out in every par- 
ticular. One thought dominates the structure in 
every part and harmonizes the entire conception. 
Such a majestic cathedral and historic castle is the 
Bible. It took sixteen centuries to make it ; but its 
earlier portions anticipate and prepare for its later 
revelations. In the Old Testament we find the germ 
of those facts which blossom and bloom into pre- 
cious truths, whose flower and fruitage we enjoy 
in the New Testament. Every portion of revelation 
was perfect for its place and time. Freeman has 
shown us, in his " Growth of the English Constitu- 
tion," how the constitution of Britain up to to-day 
is the outgrowth of the earliest Saxon institutions of 
that land. So the full-blown flower of revelation is 
the development of the bud of divine teaching in the 
earliest history of the race. The doctrine of the 
Trinity, the hope of salvation, and the glory of the 

Messiah are all promised or implied in the teaching 
14 



210 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

of patriarchs and prophets at the very dawn of 
human history. Many men of many climes, and of 
varied degrees of intellect and spiritual culture, were 
employed in the preparation of the unique book 
which we call the Bible. Some of these men were 
prophets and poets ; some were kings and some peas- 
ants ; and some were shepherds and some were sol- 
diers. They thus represented various grades of 
social life and of national growth, but all had their 
place and purpose in giving to the world God's full 
and glorious revelation of himself. Through the 
lofty arches of this great cathedral the idyllic song 
of the shepherd floats, and the imperial voice of the 
king thunders ; here also the blended voices of evan- 
gelists and apostles echo, and all finally unite in 
ascriptions of praise to him who is the Child of the 
Manger and the Ancient of Days. The devout 
student discovers at every stage in this progressive 
revelation that God was going before men with the 
blessings of his goodness. There are questions which, 
without this revelation, we could never answer. 
What shall we think of God? Is there a life to 
come? Hoav shall man be just with God? These 
questions uninspired wisdom could never answer. 
God implanted within us the longing to know some- 
thing of himself, and the means by which that long- 
ing can be satisfied he also furnishes. He is ever 
going before us along the track of history and revela- 



ANTICIPATORY BLESSINGS. 211 

tion. Traversing these highways of providence and 
redemption, we discover the footprints of the Son of 
God. As the loving John said to the impulsive 
Peter, in the gray dawn of the morning, near the 
shore of the Galilean Sea on which the Master was 
standing, " It is the Lord ;" so the Christian student 
can say of every divine appointment in every dispen- 
sation. Echoing through the corridors of all the 
centuries the devout student hears the foot-beats of 
Jesus Christ. Revelation joins with creation in 
saying, "Thou preventest us with the blessings of 
thy goodness." 

3. This beneficent law is illustrated especially in 
redemption. God is never taken by surprise; 
" Known unto God are all his works, from the begin- 
ning of the world." The first promise, given at the 
gate of Eden to our fallen parents, contains the Gos- 
pel as the seed contains the tree. In the garments 
given to cover the sinning pair was a hint at least 
of the spotless robe which is the righteousness of 
Christ. A ray of light from the distant cross of 
Calvary fell on their dark pathway as they walked 
from Eden's brightness. The cross was not an 
unexpected remedy for an unseen calamity. We 
are in danger of getting into deep water at this 
point, and of becoming entanglecl in the' meshes of 
sublapsarianism and of supralapsarianism ; but of 
this we may be sure : we ought always to have the 



212 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

idea of the divine remedy in mind when we judge of 
the disaster which befell our race. It is certain that 
God anticipated the fall in the provisions of his 
mercy; certain that Christ was the Lamb slain 
before the foundation of the world; certain that 
God's knowledge anticipated the disaster as his lov- 
ing power prepared the remedy. When there was no 
eye to pity, his eye pitied ; when there was no hand 
outstretched to help, his was outstretched to save; 
before our sense of need came his provision of help. 
And what is true of the provisions for the race as a 
whole is true in the conversion of each individual 
sinner. We should never have sought Christ if he 
had not first sought us. Christ sought Nathaniel 
under the fig tree, before Nathaniel sought him as 
his Saviour. Christ sought Matthew at the receipt 
of custom, while Matthew was intent only on the 
faithful performance of daily duty. Christ sought 
Zacchaeus in the sycamore tree while he would have 
hid himself from the Lord behind its leafy branches. 
Christ sought the woman of Samaria at the well 
before she sought him as the Messiah. In the 
woman who was a sinner Christ sought and found 
the woman, although the Pharisees only sought and 
found the sinner. Christ was the Good Shepherd 
ever seeking the straying sheep. He is going before 
you to-day with the blessings of salvation. He came 
to you in the cradle. In the song prompted by a 



ANTIC IP A 7 OR Y BLESSINGS. 213 

mother's heart and sung by her loving lips he was 
striving to win you to himself . He came to you in 
your school-days, saying to each boy and to each girl, 
" My son, my daughter, give me thine heart. " He has 
come to you all in a thousand ways since with the 
same sweet message. In the blessings of health, of 
home, of a father's smile, of a mother's love, and of 
a child's trustful greeting, Jesus Christ has been 
coming with the blessings of his goodness. His 
warm love he offers you to-day. Oh, spurn not his 
mercy! Refuse not his anticipatory grace; but sub- 
mit heart and life for time and for eternity into the 
hands of him who has loved you with an eternal 
love, and who waits to crown you with the blessings 
of his goodness. 

4. The law of anticipatory blessings finds its illus- 
tration in Providence. All God's providential deal- 
ings are the blessings of his goodness. He waits to 
set a pure crown of gold on the head of every son 
and daughter of Adam. Our birth in this land is 
one of the blessings of his anticipating love; our 
birth in this particular age is an indisputable proof 
of that goodness ; indeed, all his providences are such 
anticipations. It is true that "like as a father 
pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that 
fear him;" it is true that "as one whom his mother 
comforteth, so will I comfort you ;" it is true that, 
" all things work together for good to them that love 



214 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

God. " Our blessed Lord is preparing us for what 
he has prepared for us. We are a prepared people 
for a prepared mansion and crown. Look over your 
past life, and you will see how this law has been illus- 
trated. Observe to-day your present experiences, 
and you will know some day just why you have had 
them as they are. To-day we are to sit at the table 
of the Lord. The ordinance of the Lord's Supper is 
an illustration of the Lord's considerate goodness. 
He knew that we would need such a help in our 
spiritual lives; this ordinance he gave us to be 
observed in remembrance of him. The Lord's Bap- 
tism sets forth the beginning of the new life in 
Christ; the Lord's Supper the continuance of that 
life by his grace and power. The Lord's Baptism 
is to be observed but once, as it is the symbol of the 
new birth; the Lords' Supper is to be observed often, 
as it is the symbol of our daily dependence upon God 
for strength and growth. The Good Shepherd ever 
goeth before his sheep and leadeth them. He leads, 
he never drives. There is no pathway, however 
thorny, which we must tread which he has not 
trodden ; there is no cross, however heavy, which we 
must bear that he has not borne. Is death before 
us? He has gone through the valley and made it 
luminous by his presence. Must we enter the tomb? 
There he once lay, and therefrom he came forth in 
triumph. Do we need a mansion in glory? He 



ANTICIPATORY BLESSINGS. 215 

anticipates the need, saying : " I go to prepare a place 
for you." Do we need a friend at the right hand of 
God ? " He ever liveth to make intercession for them. " 
The Psalm from which the text is taken is, as we 
have seen, a triumphal ode. It speaks of a crown of 
pure gold. But a loftier song than this psalm shall 
he sung when we chant, " Thanks be to God, which 
giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
Christ." A nobler crown shall be worn, if we be 
faithful unto death and let no man take our crown, 
for there is laid up for us a triple crown, the crown 
of righteousness, the crown of life, and the crown of 
glory. 



XVI. 

Watcbing 1bim Zbeve. 

" And sitting down, they ivatched him there." — Matt, xxvii. 36. 

THE " sitting down" spoken of in the text seems 
to indicate a temporary change in the feeling 
and conduct of the crucifiers of our Lord. The atti- 
tude here described is the first breathing-place which 
they had in their work of death ; it marks the first 
moment of serious reflection in the dizzy whirl of 
their rage. Alike before and after this time all was 
fierce passion and bitter railing ; now there is a lull 
in the storm which had swept on so wildly. As the 
commanding voice of Christ once sounded over the 
Sea of Galilee, hushing its wild waves into stillness, 
so now the eloquent silence of the patient Sufferer 
hushes the turbulent sea of human passions; and, 
of this occasion, as of that, it might be said, " there 
was a great calm." 

"Silence is vocal, if we listen well," says an 
American poet ; and truly this awe-inspiring silence, 

together with the fear-inducing darkness \* Inch soon 

216 



WATCHING HIM THERE 217 

followed, overshadowing the land from the sixth 
hour to the ninth hour, speak volumes to every listen- 
ing heart of the greatness of him who dies. It is 
said that murderers are drawn by a strange fascina- 
tion to the spot where they have committed the foul 
deed, even though their coming may expose them 
to detection and death ; and perhaps something like 
this feeling may have prompted some to the watch- 
ing spoken of in the text. 

1. Let us, in the first place, study the watchers 
of that strange sight — " they watched him there." 
Who are the persons meant by the pronoun " they" 
in the text? There were large numbers of persons 
at or near the cross. From all parts of the land they 
were accustomed to go to Jerusalem to be present at 
the Passover. Josephus has, perhaps with some 
exaggeration, said that often not fewer than two 
and a half to three millions were present on Passover 
occasions. The increased excitement attending the 
death of One who had awakened loving gratitude in 
the hearts of many, and hatred in the hearts of many 
others, could not fail to attract an unusually large 
number about the cross of Christ. Many gazed with 
comparative indifference that day on the dying 
Sufferer, who afterward learned to regard his name 
as the most blessed name on earth or in heaven. 
In that crowd are persons of many classes and con- 
ditions; they are there with various motives and 



218 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

with contradictory emotions. But the tumultuous 
crowd can be arranged practically under a few 
classes. Prominent among those about the cross 
and gazing on that dreadful scene are the Roman 
soldiers. They were not much more than mere 
machines ; they had to obey orders — " theirs not to 
reason why." They were there for a practical ob- 
ject; there was danger lest the friends of Jesus 
should come and take him down from the cross, and 
thus preserve his life. We are told that Josephus 
had a friend who was thus taken down and who 
lived; and many similar cases have occurred even 
after three hours had been spent upon the cross. 
The wounds in crucifixion were not necessarily mor- 
tal, hence the necessity of watching the crucified. 
There were four soldiers, a centurion, and three 
others as an official guard. They watched with 
little concern, certainly with little sympathy. But 
they were free from all the prejudices of the Jew, 
and they were more open to the influences of the 
truth. Throughout the whole trial and crucifixion 
they manifest a candor and manliness as gratifying 
as unexpected. Were it not for their base and 
unaccountable part in endeavoring to conceal the 
resurrection, their record in connection with the 
crucifixion would be comparatively noble. Because 
the Jews had not the power of life and death, the 
Romans conducted the crucifixion according to the 



WATCHING HIM THERE. 219 

forms of their law. It must, therefore, be attended 
to with the precision peculiar to these law-observing 
Romans. As parts of the chain of Roman order 
which girded the world, these Roman soldiers sat 
watching the expiring Saviour. They could not 
remain entirely unmoved ; for this was no ordinary 
execution. They had seen many criminals put to 
death ; but the}' had never witnessed so wonderful a 
u malefactor" as was Jesus. Familiar with blood- 
shed, they never before were moved as now. A 
thoughtful Roman must have wondered at the oppo- 
sition manifested toward Jesus. Why should the 
Jews insist upon the death of Jesus? What evil 
had he done? The thought of that harmless Naza- 
rene rising against Caesar was sheer folly. Every 
intelligent Roman knew that such an assertion was 
utterly unfounded. Even an ordinary soldier must 
have had thoughts like these. Why this lying testi- 
mony and fierce rage against the meek and lowly 
One? Why this unappeasable clamor for his death? 
Questions like these must have suggested themselves 
to these Roman watchers. 

Not in vain did these soldiers watch him there. 
Although darkness was gathering about the cross, 
light was dawning upon some of these Roman hearts. 
Not in vain were the dying words of * Christ spoken. 
Even at the moment of their utterance they were 
awakening a response in the heart of the centurion ; 



220 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

even then was the promise fulfilled, "I shall give 
thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the 
uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." 
Before entering the portal of death, Christ opened 
the door of life to the guilty robber ; and, dying in 
shame, he gave the hope of life and glory to the 
Roman centurion. Gaze on, ye Roman soldiers ! for 
you also is this Jesus dying : no Pharisee shall shut 
you out from the kingdom of God! Soldiers, vic- 
torious under the eagles of Rome, you may come off 
more than conquerors through the blood and under 
the banner of Immanuel ! 

Another class conspicuously present is made up 
of chief priests and Pharisees. So -frequent and so 
violent has been the denunciation of these that one 
feels it to be almost a virtue not to denounce them. 
The sermons of John the Baptist were filled with 
solemn warnings against this " generation of vipers ;" 
and no discourses were ever spoken in any age or 
language so terrible with " woes" as the last public 
addresses of Christ against the Scribes and Phari- 
sees. One is almost appalled as he hears the scath- 
ing rebukes which came from the lips of the loving 
Saviour. These priests and Pharisees were very 
religious in connection with the crucifixion. All 
men must have observed the sanctity of their faces 
and the punctilious propriety of their manners. All 
impiety must have been rebuked in their presence, 



WATCHING HIM THERE. 221 

and all evil-doers must have hung their heads in 
very shame. But, however these outwardly religious 
Pharisees might impose on man, they could not 
deceive Christ. He laid bare their inmost souls, 
revealing their lrypocrisy and exposing their inordi- 
nate self-righteousness. So religious were they that 
they would not enter the judgment-hall of Pilate 
lest they might be defiled. But they presumed to 
enter into the presence of God with their lying words 
and blasphemous prayers. They could suborn wit- 
nesses; they could falsely testify, using the selfish 
Pilate as their tool, and making the sinless Christ 
their victim. No wonder these Pharisees hated 
Jesus ; no wonder they plotted against him ; no won- 
der they crucified him ; and no wonder they now sit 
down and watch him there. Until darkness loves 
light, until sin loves holiness, and Satan God, 
Pharisees must hate Christ. Gaze on, ye murderous 
Scribes and Pharisees! Ye will crucify your own 
Messiah — him of whom your prophets wrote; him 
whom it has been your greatest joy and your highest 
hope to expect. 

There, too, in silence and horror sit the rank and 
file of the people who made themselves hoarse in 
shouting, "Away with him, crucify him!" We 
pity them more for their folly than we blame them 
for their crime. They were the dupes of designing 
rulers ; they were ready a little before to shout " Ho- 



222 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

sanna," and now just as ready to cry, " Crucify him !" 
Here are those who spat upon him and smote him 
with the palms of their hands. Surely their hearts 
now relent. See that bowed head, that lacerated 
back, and those bleeding hands and feet ! At that 
sight the sun hid his face. When Christ was born 
the glory of noonday illumined the darkness of 
midnight; when Christ dies the darkness of mid- 
night takes the place of the brightness of noonday. 
When Christ dies the very earth shudders and 
quakes — the rocks rend and the graves open. Amid 
this crowd of "common people," who once heard 
Christ gladly, God had many precious jewels — 
jewels which are soon to take the place of that 
crown of thorns on the brow of Christ. But we 
may believe that still the chief priests and the Phari- 
sees looked on the dying Lord with only thoughts of 
hate in their hearts. There was murder in their 
hearts ; there was murder in their faces. There was 
triumph, too, in heart and face ; their plans were suc- 
cessful ; and that haughty young Jew who would not 
bow to their mandates is brought low: He is in the 
agonies of death; they are in ecstasies of joy. He 
is under the frown of God's wrath; they, in their 
own estimation, are in the enjoyment of his approv- 
ing smile. But it is almost certain that their joy 
is strangely intermingled with fear; an indefinable 
terror chills their hearts. What if he be the Son of 






WATCHING HIM THERE. 228 

God? What if his blood should come upon us and 
our children? This thought is the handwriting on 
the wall of their souls which suggests a fearful look- 
ing-for of judgment and fiery indignation. The 
painter who could catch and portray all these vary- 
ing and conflicting emotions now upon their faces 
would immortalize himself and his art. It is almost 
impossible for us to look upon the Pharisees gloating 
in hellish glee over the dying Jesus and speak of 
them in terms of moderation. 

Others also are watching that strange sight who 
may not be omitted in this enumeration : " And 
many women were there, beholding afar off, which 
followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him." 

Last at the cross and first at the tomb, these faithful 
women stand before the world as true heroines, 
whose devotion nothing could lessen, whose faithful- 
ness was as loyal as it was unselfish, and whose love 
many waters could not drown. Farther off in posi- 
tion, they were nearer in heart ; undemonstrative in 
action, they were unchanging in affection. Among 
them was Mary Magdalene. Once she had bowed 
under the sevenfold power of Satan, now she is 
restored to her right mind. Still may she gaze with 
tearful sympathy and saddened joy; she had received 
much, she loves much, There, too, was the mother 
Mary, through whose soul the sword had gone. 
There were many others like Martha and Mary, 



224 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

whose hospitality he had shared, and who gave him 
their personal affection. There were many in this 
group of disciples who silently and with breaking 
hearts watched his agony. They are scattered 
sheep; their shepherd is smitten. Some stand near 
the cross; some are mingling with Pharisees and 
soldiers ; more look on from a distance. One almost 
rebukes them for their cowardly desertion of their 
Master in his hour of sorrow ; one almost wishes that 
they had rushed into danger, even into death, to 
fulfil their boastful declarations of love. In that 
company are those who have received his manifold 
benefactions. Their eyes are now blinded with tears 
and their hearts are breaking with grief. So 
strangely mysterious are all these events, so sudden 
are the surprises of the times, and so baffled and 
conflicting are their hopes, that they know not 
what opinions to cherish nor what courses to pursue. 
It was theirs in after-times to show the world how 
brave, how noble, how divine frail human nature 
could become when constrained by the love and 
inspired by the power of Jesus Christ. Theirs it 
was afterward to gaze on the cross with transports 
of joy and to catch the inspiration of him who hung 
thereon, and then to go to the ends of the earth, 
telling the story of his love, enduring the shame of 
his cross, and rejoicing to suffer and to die with 
him. 



WATCHING HIM THERE, 225 

2. Let us observe, in the second place, the august 
Person whom they watched there — "they watched 
him there." There were three crosses on Calvary, 
and on each cross hung a sufferer. But one only 
was the subject of thought and the special object of 
sight. The Galilean challenged the attention of 
all, whether in love or hate, in sorrow or in joy. 
"Never man spake like this man," was the testimony 
of the messengers of the Pharisees who were seeking 
to arrest Jesus. We may also add, never did man 
love like this man, and never did man evoke love as 
did this man. Jesus himself said, shortly before 
his crucifixion ; " And I, if I be lifted up from the 
earth, will draw all men unto me ;" and even while 
he" is suspended on the cross his prophecy is fulfilled. 
What means that strange fascination which rivets 
all eyes on the dying Jesus? What strange power 
is it that invests the humiliated Christ with this 
kingly attraction? What mysterious influence was 
it that compelled the centurion to exclaim, " Truly 
this was the Son of God!" To him long before 
prophets directed their gaze ; his day Abraham saw 
afar off, and the sight rejoiced his heart. To serve 
him a star marks a new path in the heavens ; to him 
the wise men came from the East bringing their 
gifts of wealth, of learuing, and of love, and laid 
them at his feet. To him blindness rolled its sight- 
less eyeballs when his approaching footsteps were 
15 



226 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

heard. To him sorrow turned its weeping eyes and 
lifted its broken heart ; and to him winds and waves 
rendered ready obedience. To him angels came 
from heaven ministering in his hour of agony ; and 
against him hell directed its deadliest shafts, and 
from him Satan, baffled, turned away. And now 
in his deepest humiliation to him all eyes are turned 
as never to men in highest greatness. Is he only a 
man who thus challenges and receives the wonder- 
ing gaze, the loving admiration, and the profound 
adoration or the rancorous hatred of all those who 
watched him in life and who gazed upon him in 
death? The very stones cry out a thousand times 
no — he is man ; he is God ; he is the eternal Word 
made flesh, and through that veil of flesh the pre- 
existing glory shines. He is the Child of the Man- 
ger; he is the Ancient of Days; he is the Son of 
man; he is the Son of God. Seeming defeat, real 
humiliation, and an ignominious death cannot con- 
ceal his awful majesty, his sublime personality, his 
august deity. The world has ever since been drawn 
to him in tenderest love, or at least in admiring 
wonder. Men have attempted in vain with the 
fullest scholarship and the greatest genius to write 
his life. Jews confess admiration for his character, 
and Mohammedans place him above all the prophets. 
Geikie in his introduction to his " Life of Christ" 
reminds us that the myriad-minded Shakespeare paid 



WATCHING HIM THERE. 227 

lowliest reverence in passage after passage to Jesus 
Christ; that Galileo, Kepler, Bacon, Newton, and 
Milton exalt the name of Jesus above every other 
name ; that Spinoza calls Christ the symbol of the 
divine wisdom, and Kant the symbol of ideal perfec- 
tion ; that Goethe is amazed at the reflected splendor 
of divinity which shines in the Gospels ; that Rous- 
seau calls the books of the philosophers petty com- 
pared with the gospels, and adds, " If the death of 
Socrates be that of a sage, the life and death of Jesus 
are those of a God ;" that Thomas Carlyle calls Jesus 
of Nazareth "our divinest symbol;" that the exqui- 
site genius of Herder says that " Jesus Christ is, in 
the noblest and in the most perfect sense, the realized 
ideal of humanity;" that Napoleon, who strode the 
world like a Colossus, says among other striking 
things of Jesus, " I think I understand somewhat 
of human nature, and I tell you . . . that Jesus 
Christ was more than man. Alexander, Csesar, 
Charlemagne, and myself founded great empires; 
but upon what did the creations of our genius 
depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded his 
empire upon love, and to this very day millions 
would die for him." And to illustrate this great 
thought further Geikie quotes this magnificent sen- 
tence from Jean Paul Richter : " The life of Christ 
concerns him who, being the holiest among the 
mighty, the mightiest among the holy, lifted with 



228 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 



his pierced hand empires off their hinges, and turned 
the stream of centuries out of its channel, and still 
governs the ages." O mystery of Ulster ies, Christ 
manifest in the flesh! O abounding grace and 
matchless love! The eternal God in the garb of 
man, the sinless Christ dying for a sinful race ! O 
my soul! in wonder, adoration, and love, gaze on 
him and him alone; gaze on him until thou shalt 
exalt him as thy prophet, king, and priest on earth, 
and until he shall become the theme of thy song in 
heaven ! 

3. We notice also the place where they saw him — 
" They watched him there. " There on the cross they 
watched him; there in his weakness and humilia- 
tion. Not on across .do men love to see their heroes. 
Rather in the strife of conflict and in the flush of 
victory do they love to gaze on heroes, but not so 
with Christ. Not to him driving out from the tem- 
ple those who made it a place of merchandise does 
the world turn its eye; not to him stilling the sea 
and raising the dead. Glorious as he is always and 
everywhere, when we see him on the cross we forget 
all else and adore him most as the Lamb that was 
slain. Many paintings and descriptions there are 
of the cross, but there never was a true one. There 
was a glory and there was a shame attaching to the 
cross which no painter can reproduce. There are 
always given him a halo of heavenly glory and a 



WATCHING HIM THERE. 229 

calmness of features which are strangely unlike the 
awful reality. We can never understand the awful 
weight of woe which he bore as the sinner's substi- 
tute on the cross of Calvary. We do not know fully 
what is meant by the words, " He bore our sins in his 
own body on the tree. " But though we cannot under- 
stand all, and would not minutely describe all that 
we can understand, we can still know that it is in 
his character as sufferer, as vicarious sacrifice, that 
we most adore him. Hating the sin which made 
him die, we can magnify the love which made the 
sacrifice. We are lost in the mystery of godliness 
as we strive to fathom the awful depths and to scale 
the lofty heights of wisdom and love which the cross 
suggests ; but we can still rejoice in the assurance 
of the heavenly blessings which the cross imparts. 
Watching him there light is thrown upon all the 
past appointments of God ; the Old Testament thus 
becomes radiant with meaning and resplendent with 
light. Secular history becomes intelligible. The 
deepest questions of the human heart are answered, 
and God is seen to be just and yet the justifier of 
him who believes in Jesus. Building our studio on 
Calvary the events of Providence and history become 
a divine harmony, although standing anywhere else 
they would be confusion and chaos. The cross is.the 
pivot around which all the events of history revolve; 
it is the centre of the universe; it is the key which 



230 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES 



unlocks the mystery of human history and destiny* 
At the cross the beautiful language of the Psalmist 
is illustrated: 

"Mercy and truth are met together, 
Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. " 

The original beholders of this sad sight are gone. 
Brave soldiers, haughty Pharisees, and gentle 
women have blended in common dust; but they 
were types of all subsequent beholders, and as such 
they still live. The , world ever since has sat 
watching him there. A mysterious spell has bound 
men, whether in love or hate, to the cross of Christ. 
The soldiers still live. They, in their cold and 
mechanical performance of duty, are reproduced in 
the historian who writes of Christ and his work with 
the coolness or even hatred of Gibbon and others ; in 
the philosopher who discusses him with the assumed 
indifference or sentimental interest of Penan. But 
their indifference is seldom real. Their effort to 
appear unconcerned shows their deep anxiety. They 
cannot leave Christ alone. They keep writing about 
him. Why are they anxious to overthrow his work? 
Oh, what a power there is in watching Christ there ! 
Well might Paul glory in Christ crucified — as the 
power of God, power to awaken the tenderest love, 
power to evoke the direst hate. A touch-stone is 
this view of Christ drawing and repelling men and 



WATCHING HIM THERE. 231 

alwaj's revealing what is in their heart. From Celsus 
and Porphyry to infidels of to-day men have gazed 
there. They could not help it ; they must look, and like 
the Roman centurion some commencing in cold in- 
difference have ended by exclaiming, " Truly this was 
the Son of God." Others, like Julian the Apostate, 
may say in their pride : " "Wretch, I will crush thee ;" 
but like him they will have to say in their weakness, 
"O Galilean, thou hast conquered!" Christ is set 
for the rising and falling of many, and if men do 
not rise higher by the sight they must fall lower. 
Who to-day is sitting down and watching him there 
with cold indifference? It cannot be with indiffer- 
ence. If the sight does not melt, it will freeze; if it 
does not soften, it will harden. The sight of the 
crucified One rent flinty rocks and broke proud 
Roman hearts, and shall one this morning view that 
sight and remain unsubdued? Oh, "behold the 
man" until your souls bow before him with the 
prayer, "Lord, save me or I perish." 

Pharisees, sometimes within the Church, and 
oftener without the Church, have in every age sat 
gazing on Christ. Sometimes they are in the Church 
great sticklers for words and forms — the anise, mint, 
and cumin, ardent champions of the letter — while 
they entirely forget in their conduct toward their 
brethren the spirit of the Gospel and the weightier 
matters of the law. Sometimes out of the Church 



232 DIVINE BALUSTRADES, 

they stand aloof from Christian duty and can only 
criticise those whose shoe-latchets they are not worthy 
to unloose. They will not go in themselves and they 
would prevent all others from going iu. Are there 
any such sitting down and watching Christ this 
morning? Is that the spirit which his holy life and 
painful death teach? Fling from you the tattered 
garb of your own righteousness and come in your 
poverty to Christ ; he will make you rich, clothing 
you, humbling you, and sending you away in your 
right mind. 

The loving disciples and the gentle women who 
stood beholding him there have never ceased to watch 
him. Now in caves and rocks, now in Alpine valleys 
and on many hill-tops faithful men and women have 
in all ages stood up for Jesus. The bravest and 
truest the world has ever seen were those who knew 
Christ and his self-sacrificing love, who feared him 
and knew no other fear. We have read of the brave 
three hundred who devoted themselves to death at 
Thermopylae for the salvation of their country; we 
have read of the Locrian king who, when his son had 
broken the laws, the punishment of which was that 
both eyes should be put out, gave one of his own, 
thus enduring a part of his child's suffering; we all 
know of the lovely English queen who sucked the 
poison from her husband's wound, though she knew 
death was her reward. But never were sacrifices 



WATCHING HIM THERE. 233 

like Christ's; never was devotion like that of his fol- 
lowers. God bless those humble disciples of Christ 
who, unknowing and unknown, are living and labor- 
ing for Christ. God bless those faithful and gentle 
women who, in whatever circle they move, from the 
highest to the lowest, know how to serve their Mas- 
ter, beholding him until they are transformed into 
his image. 

And sitting down in this house you have been 
watching him there for this hour. Some Pharisee 
has been rebuked. Some disciple has been encour- 
aged, and some careless ones have been awakened. 
I now ask, " What will you do with Jesus who is 
called Christ?" He who was sent to prepare the 
way of the Lord and make his paths straight, gives 
the right reply : " Behold the Lamb of God, which 
taketh away the sin of the world." 



XVII. 

£be 2>eafc ant> tbe Xiving Cbrist 

" I am he that liveth, and was dead: and, behold, I am alive 
for evermore, amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. " — 
Revelation i. 18. 



THESE are the words of the glorified Jesus to 
the exiled John. We have in this connection 
a magnificent description of Christ as he appeared in 
glory, standing in the midst of the seven candles, 
clothed with a long garment, and girt with a golden 
girdle. His hair was white as snow, his eyes were 
as a flame of fire, his feet like unto fine brass, and 
his voice like the sound of many waters. In his 
right hand he had seven stars, and from his mouth 
went a sharp two-edged sword, and his countenance 
was like the sun in its dazzling splendor. John, 
overawed by the sight, fell at his feet as if he were 
dead; but the glorified one lays his hand tenderly 
upon the apostle, exhorting him not to fear, and 
assuring him that though he, the triumphant Saviour, 

was dead, he is now alive for evermore, and has the 

234 



THE DEAD AND THE LIVING CHRIST. 835 

keys of hell and death. We are not surprised that 
the apostle, recognizing the presence of a divine 
being, is greatly alarmed ; neither are we surprised 
that when he recognizes in this glorious personage 
the Lord Jesus, whom years before he had known 
so well and loved so tenderly, his fears are allayed, 
and his soul is filled with peace and joy. 

1. The text teaches us that Christ was tempora- 
rily dead. This description at once identifies the 
glorious Personage who thus appeared to the aston- 
ished apostle. To none other would this remarkable 
description apply. Jesus Christ had been truly put to 
death ; he was certainly dead. On this point there can 
be no doubt. This account carries us back at once 
to the history of Christ in the gospels. After he had 
uttered his seventh saying upon the cross his head 
sank upon his breast, and the Lord of life and glory 
was dead. The marvel to all who were familiar 
with his crucifixion was that he should die so 
speedily. He had been on the cross but about six 
hours ; and we know that often the crucified lingered 
two or three days before death came to relieve their 
sufferings. How shall we account for our Lord's 
speedy death ? Several considerations enter into this 
answer. The exhaustion incident to that long and 
checkered "night in which he was betrayed," has its 
part in this answer. We have only to think of the 
sorrowful passover, of the bloody sweat, of the cruel 



236 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 



arrest, of the illegal trials before Annas and Caia- 
phas, of the arraignment before Pilate and Herod, of 
the brutal scourging, of the taunting mockeries, and 
of the physical pain on the cross, to discover reasons 
for his death so unexpectedly soon. There was also 
a deeper reason, which mere natural causes will not 
explain. Our Lord was bearing our sins in his own 
body on the tree ; in the hiding of his Father's face, 
as evidenced by his own agonizing cry, there was a 
sorrow which no human tongue can explain. Mere 
physical causes will not account for the early death 
of one whose proper life gave sound health and a 
vigorous body. It may be true, as Dr. William 
Stroud and others have argued, that he died of literal 
rupture of the heart. This supposition will explain 
solemn prophecies in the 2 2d Psalm, as well as some 
of his own exclamations while upon the cross. This 
idea has received the indorsement of some critics 
who are among the ablest physicians, as well as the 
most reverent believers of our time. 

We know that the Romans were accustomed to 
allow the bodies of the crucified to remain on the 
cross until they were devoured by birds of prey, or 
wasted away by decomposition. This fact was one 
of the elements of the fearful degradation of this 
form of death. But by a special law the Jews took 
down the bodies of the crucified before sunset ; it is 
certain that this course would be pursued in this case, 



THE DEAD AND THE LIVING CHRIST. 237 

as the next day was not only the Sabbath, but the 
Sabbath of the great Passover Feast. The next day 
was " an high day, " and no time is to be lost, as but 
a few hours at most remain before the sun shall set, 
as it is now fast westering. We are told that the 
authorities besought Pilate that the death of the 
victims might be hastened, so that there might be no 
desecration of the sanctity of the Sabbath by per- 
mitting the dead to remain upon their crosses upon 
that day. Pilate yielded and gave the necessary 
orders, and soldiers were sent at once to give them 
effect. The action of these soldiers in hastening the 
death of those upon the cross was called a coup de 
grace; as the blow of the heavy mallet which the 
soldiers used in breaking the legs of those upon the 
cross resulted in immediate death. The soldiers break 
the legs of the robbers, but we are told that when 
they came to Jesus " they brake not his legs," and the 
reason assigned is that they " saw that he was dead 
already." This is one proof of the actual death of 
Jesus. These soldiers little knew that the3 r were ful- 
filling a prophecy which was uttered fifteen hundred 
years before — a prophecy which the evangelist John 
records, "a bone of him shall not be broken." But 
there was a bare possibility that Jesus might have 
swooned and that he was not really dead. To make 
assurance doubly sure, " one of the soldiers with a 
spear pierced his side, and forthwith came thereout 



238 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 



blood and water." These soldiers must faithfully 
perform their duty. This scene produced a profound 
impression on the mind of the sensitive John. Years 
after, when he records the event in his gospel, the 
solemn occasion is reproduced in all its vivid details ; 
and still later, when writing in his epistle, he says : 
" This is he that came by water and blood, even 
Jesus Christ ; not by water only, but by water and 
blood." 

We shall not stop here to discuss the physio- 
logical details which this solemn fact suggests, 
nor to dwell upon the arguments which have 
arisen in connection with it, but we cannot help 
noticing that this incident fulfilled another prophecy, 
of which the same evangelist speaks : " They shall 
look on him whom they pierced." The flowing of 
the water and the blood is of great importance in es- 
tablishing beyond a doubt the reality of Christ's 
death. The spear-thrust did not cause his death. 
He was already dead; but if he had not been dead 
that spear-thrust would certainly have produced 
death. By anticipation two heresies which after- 
ward sprang up were refuted by these solemn occur- 
rences : one heresy was that he only swooned ; the 
other, that of the Docetae, that his body was not real, 
but only apparent. It would seem as if there was a 
divine design in the anticipation and refutation of 
these two heresies. He could appeal to his own con- 



THE DEAD AND THE LIVING CHRIST. 239 

sciousness for the truth of the solemn statements 
which he makes. His positive and repeated state- 
ments of the facts connected with the spear-thrusts 
and the flowing stream of blood and water leave no 
doubt as to the fact that our Lord had a veritable body 
and that that body was truly dead. Yes, the Son of 
God, the Lord of Life and Glory, is dead. Shall he 
be buried in a malefactor's grave? Again remark- 
able providences prevent this humiliation. God 
proposes to give honor to his Son, who has now com- 
pleted the work of atonement. A Jewish senator 
and a Jewish rabbi appear upon the scene. The dis- 
ciples timidly and surprisedly watch their approach. 
The wealthy Joseph of Arimathea goes to Pilate to 
secure the body. His request is granted, and Nico- 
demus and he assist in taking it tenderly from the 
cross and preparing it for burial. Wealth will fur- 
nish appropriate spicery and love will give becoming 
gentleness. Lovingly, even if hastily, the body is 
wrapped in the sheet thus secured. Joseph will open 
his new and costly tomb for its reception. In that 
tomb it is laid, and thus another ancient prophecy is 
fulfilled. The sun goes down, the darkness deepens, 
and Mary of Magdala and the other Mary sit over 
against the sepulchre where the Lord is laid. In 
that rocky tomb, motionless, dead, the mighty Re- 
deemer lies. No child of Adam was more truly dead 
than was the Lord of Life and Glory. Well may he 



240 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 



say to the apostle John, reminding him of the scenes 
he had witnessed at the cross, " I am he . . . that 
was dead." 

2. But we* observe, in the next place, that this same 
Jesus is "alive for evermore." So he affirms in his 
interview with the disciple whom he loved. Death 
is no more to claim him as its victim. Evermore he 
lives to bless his people and to comfort them with 
this glorious assurance. In that wonderful chapter, 
the 15th of I. Corinthians, the apostle Paul makes the 
death and life of Christ the very substance of his 
gospel. He affirms "that Christ died for our sins 
according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, 
and that he rose again the third day according to 
the scriptures." The fact of the resurrection of 
Christ is stated to the apostle John as a reason why 
he should not fear. This apostle was the first person 
in the world who ever believed that Christ had risen 
from the dead. On that glorious morning when he 
ran, together with Peter, to the tomb and beheld that 
the tomb was empty, that the napkin was folded in 
a place by itself, that every indication showed that the 
tomb had not been rifled, and that the Lord had nol 
made a hasty exit, an incipient faith in the great 
event dawned in his heart. That early faith, 
strengthened by the subsequent appearances of Christ 
during the forty days, is now emphasized as he be- 
holds in his- matchless glory the same Jesus whom 



THE DEAD AND THE LIVING CHRIST. 241 

once he had seen laid in the tomb. John is especially 
the evangelist who spoke of Christ as "the Life." 
Again and again he speaks of him as the Life and 
the Light of men ; he also presents him as the Resur- 
rection and the Life. Fittingly, therefore, is he 
now chosen to publish the fact that Christ is alive 
for evermore. Our Lord affirms, with a solemn 
amen, the fact of his possession of unending life. 
This strong affirmation is also quite in harmony 
with the records given by this same apostle. Again 
and again he reports the solemn utterances of his 
Lord, preceding them with his familiar truly, truly, 
or his amen, amen. 

This appearance of Christ carries us once more 
back to the Gospel narrative. We remember the 
new tomb with the great stone placed at its mouth. 
We remember the placing of Caesar's great seal and 
the appointment of the night-watch. We see the 
soldiers as they pace to and fro during the solemn 
hours guarding the tomb of the mighty dead ; but we 
learn later that the grave is empty and that the Lord 
of Life and Glory has burst the bands of death and 
has overturned the throne of the grim despot w r ho so 
long had reigned without a rival in the regions of 
despair and death. No human eye witnessed the 
glorious resurrection ; it has been well said that often 
God's sublimest works are wrought in silence and 

secrecy ; but of the resurrection there can be no more 
16 



242 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

doubt than of the death. If the testimony of these 
witnesses cannot be taken as conclusive, then no 
testimony of any witnesses can ever make any his- 
torical event certain. The clumsy story of the 
soldiers and of the chief priests can impose upon no 
student of the narrative. Christ's resurrection is the 
great, majestic, and sublime fact of Christianity. 
The corner-stone of the Christian Church is laid in 
his grave. On this glad Easter morning we hail 
him as the Conqueror of sin, the Vanquisher of death, 
and the Ransomer from the grave. His resurrection 
is the keystone in the sublime arch of revelation and 
Christianity. The resurrection of Christ has exalted 
the poetry, the music, the sculpture, the painting, and 
the literature of the world. It is the proof of all 
Christ's assertions concerning himself. He staked 
all on that event. It is the conclusive evidence of all 
his prophecies concerning himself. It also empha- 
sizes and glorifies the story of his incarnation, of his 
perfect life, and of his atoning death. The apostles 
were willing to set that fact forth as a sufficient evi- 
dence of the truth they preached. We follow their 
example. Dr. Boardman, in his volume on "The 
Epiphanies of the Risen Lord," has beautifully said: 
" The resurrection stands forth in the apostolic the- 
ology as the epitome and very label of Christianity 
itself. And well it may ; for it involves the whole 
story of the Incarnation. He who has risen must 



THE DEAD AND THE LIVING CHRIST. 243 

have died, and he who has died must have lived, and 
he who has lived must have been born. Jerusalem's 
empty tomb proves Bethlehem's holy manger. And 
so it comes to pass that belief in the resurrection of 
Christ is the touch-stone of the Christian faith, the 
key to the kingdom of heaven." The apostle Paul 
has taught us that if Christ be not risen, our faith is 
vain. The resurrection of Christ gives us a living Sa- 
viour. Others before had been dead and were brought 
to life, but they now sleep in death. Lazarus is 
dead ; the daughter of Jairus is dead ; the son of the 
widow of Nain is dead, but Christ is alive for ever- 
more. Other religions had their great leaders, but 
they died to live no more ; but Christianity's Founder 
rises to live for evermore. We worship a living, and 
not a dead, Christ. The dead Christ is unwelcome 
in art and still more unwelcome in religion. We 
shall not make less of the cross on which the Lord of 
Glory dies, but we shall make more of the grave 
from which he rises in triumph. If we are reconciled 
to God by the death of his Son, we are still more 
fully saved by his life. From the living Lord we 
derive our divine life. With these precious memo- 
ries and exalted hopes we welcome with garlands of 
flowers and songs of triumph the living and loving 
Lord on this Easter morning. We give him a carpet 
of flowers for his once pierced feet ; we give him a 
crown of glory instead of the crown of thorns; 



244 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

and because he lives, we know that we shall live 
also. 

His resurrection accounts for the existence of the 
church. The Christian Church has been and is ; that 
fact no amount of infidelity can deny. The Christian 
Church has transformed the world; that fact no 
amount of infidelity can deny. Canon Farrar has 
finely shown how the Church has regenerated litera- 
ture, sanctified marriage, ennobled woman, conquered 
the world, and glorified God. But how can we ac- 
count for the Christian Church, except as we admit 
the resurrection of the Lord? The first preachers 
went forth affirming their faith in the resurrection. 
Were they deceived? Who can so believe? Were 
they deceivers? Who dare so affirm? The resurrec- 
tion of the Lord Jesus is a sufficient explanation of 
the existence of the Church. Deny the resurrection, 
and you cannot account for the Church. This fact 
any man may safely affirm in the presence of any 
student of history. You may challenge any man 
who denies the resurrection of Christ to account for 
the existence of the Church. No sensible man will 
accept the challenge. The resurrection is the crown- 
ing miracle of Christianity. If it be true, all other 
miracles are credible. To this miracle the apostles 
constantly appealed ; to it we to-day appeal with the 
utmost confidence. The apostle Paul said, " If Christ 
be not risen your faith is vain," but he was able to 



THE DEAD AND THE LIVING CHRIST. 245 

add the glorious announcement, "Now is Christ 
risen." This truth has resounded throughout the 
world ; it is really the creation of a new heaven and 
earth. Death is discrowned ; the gates of life and 
glory are open. From the night of death the sun of 
a new life has arisen upon the world. The bright- 
ness of that triumphant morning now shines over 
the earth. The apostles attached the greatest impor- 
tance to the preaching of the resurrection. To be a 
witness to this truth was one function of their calling. 
On the day of Pentecost the apostle Peter said: 
" This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are 
witnesses." Later, when questioned regarding a 
miracle which had been performed, the same apostle 
said: "Be it known unto you all, and to all the peo- 
ple of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of 
Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from 
the dead, even by him doth this man stand here be- 
fore you whole." It was said of the apostles a little 
later that with great power they gave witness of the 
resurrection. Than Paul's reasoning in I. Corin- 
thians, 15th chapter, nothing can be more logical or 
sublime. Every reader of the Gospel has observed 
what a great proportion of space is given to the 
events of the three days preceding and following 
Christ's death — almost as much space as is given to 
the three preceding years of his life. These facts 
certainly are remarkably suggestive. 



r 



246 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

3. Christ is shown by this text to be Sovereign over 
death and Hades. He is here represented as having 
the key of death ; he holds the key to the vast realms 
of darkness and death. The word here rendered 
"hell" refers to the under- world,, the abode of spirits, 
the region of the dead. This imagery of a gate and 
keys was natural in a country with walled cities and 
gates. Death is represented as having reigned in 
that gloomy abode. He was the inexorable tyrant, 
the autocratic potentate. No tears could move him, 
no prayers could bribe him, as he marched forward 
to receive his victims. Only two in the whole history 
of our race passed into glory without going through 
the gates of death. But once, there entered a strange 
visitor into that dark realm : he seemed to yield to 
the power of the tyrant, but only to make that 
tyrant's overthrow more conspicuous. Death was 
astonished; Death was discrowned; Death was de- 
stroyed by the Lord of Life and Glory. We now 
have nothing to fear. We are Christ's and Christ 
is King. Death lies vanquished at his feet. That 
dark portal can open only by Christ's permission. 
We need not fear to enter a world which he entered, 
and from which he returned in triumph. Because 
he lives we shall live also. Standing by the empty 
grave of Christ we take up the triumphant words of 
the apostle : " O death, where is thy sting? O grave, 



THE DEAD AND THE LIVING CHRIST. 247 

where is thy victory? But thanks be to God, which 
giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 
This doctrine of the resurrection, then, is a striking 
proof of our Lord's divinity. If the resurrection be 
true, our Lord's divinity is assured. Disprove the 
resurrection, and you rob him of the crown of his 
divinity; accept the resurrection, and you must 
crown him Lord of all. The apostles Peter and Paul 
indorse these statements: Paul affirms that Christ 
was " declared to be the Son of God with power by 
the resurrection from the dead. " And on Mars Hill 
he affirms that God will judge the world by Christ be- 
cause "He hath given assurance unto. all men in 
that he hath raised him from the dead." Christ's 
whole life was a testimony to his divine character 
and mission; but his resurrection is the crowning 
glory of that testimony. He foretold his resurrec- 
tion ; he affirmed that he had power to lay down his 
life and to take it again. The resurrection is the 
proof of his character as a true prophet and as a 
divine Being, for he claimed the power to raise him- 
self from the dead, and if he did raise himself he 
was God. He rose from the dead ; therefore, he is 
God. The atonement was finished, not upon the cross 
of Calvary, but in the tomb of Joseph. Finely has 
his resurrection been called "God's amen and the 
hallelujah of humanity." If his work had not been 



248 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 



completed and his atonement accepted, he had never 
risen from the tomb. 

The resurrection is also a prophecy of our resur- 
rection. Christ won this victory not for himself 
alone. Through the open grave he has made a waj r 
along which all his redeemed may pass. The Good 
Shepherd goeth before his sheep. Our resurrection 
depends upon his. When men say that the scientific 
objections are such that they cannot believe in the 
doctrine of the resurrection, we have simply to ask 
them, Did Jesus rise? That is a question of fact. 
Is it true? There are, all admit, difficulties in the 
doctrine of our resurrection. They are inexplicable ; 
but were there not also difficulties in the resurrection 
of Christ? The difficulties in the case of a general 
resurrection are not greater, from a strictly scientific 
point of view, than those in the case of the resurrec- 
tion of Jesus. To believe that he died and rose 
again is scientifically as difficult as to believe that 
we die and may rise again. He who denies that the 
dead can rise must also deny that Christ did rise. 
" But now is Christ risen. " Then we, too, may rise. 
Empty as was Joseph's tomb, so emptj^ shall all the 
tombs of the world be when the archangel's trump 
shall sound. All hail, then, thou risen Jesus ! Thou 
art he who once was dead, but who now liveth for 
evermore. At thy girdle are the keys of death and 
hell. March forward, thou mighty Conqueror in 



THE DEAD AND THE LIVING CHRIST. 249 

thy sublime victory ! Let all the bells of heaven ring 
on this glad Easter morning ! With thee we bare 
the cross ; with thee we shall be buried in the grave ; 
with thee we shall rise in triumph; and with thee 
we shall sit on thy throne to die no more, but to 
rejoice forever in the triumphs thou hast won — thou 
Christ of God, blessed for evermore ! 



XVIII. 

Untercesson? prater arto Beatific IDision. 

" Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be 
with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which 
thou hast given me : for thou lovedst me before the foundation 
of the world. — John xvii. 24. 



THE chapter from which this text is taken is one 
of the most beautiful and sacred portions of Holy 
Scripture. It is the Holy of Holies in the glorious 
Temple of Revelation. It consists of our Lord's in- 
tercessory prayer, the true Lord's Prayer. In this 
prayer the divine Redeemer anticipates his great 
sacrifice for human guilt, and on the ground of that 
sacrifice he offers this prayer for his chosen people. 
His thoughts are now to a great degree withdrawn 
from the world ; already he seems to have entered 
into the closest communion with the Father ; he 
speaks, indeed, as if his earthly work of suffering 
and sacrifice were already completed. This prayer 
followed immediately on the close of the discourse 

given in the previous chapter. Dr. Owen and others 

250 



INTERCESSORY PRAYER. 251 

express the opinion that this prayer could scarcely 
have been offered on the way from the city to the 
Garden of Gethsemane. One feels in reading these 
calm and sublime utterances that they must have 
been spoken in some secluded place. It certainly 
seems unlikely that they could have been spoken on 
a great thoroughfare, which even at midnight, dur- 
ing Passover week, would be filled with the strangers 
then in and about Jerusalem. It is most natural to 
suppose that this prayer was uttered before Christ 
and the disciples left the supper-room. At the end 
of the 14th chapter we have read the words, " Arise, 
let us go hence;" but it seems more probable that 
although they arose to go, they still lingered around 
the table, unwilling to break off a discourse so sweet 
and heavenly. We can readily understand that all 
that is recorded in the 15th, 16th, and 17th chapters 
was spoken in the guest-chamber while the disciples 
stood about the Master. It is difficult to imagine 
that our Lord would have uttered these solemn, con- 
fidential, and sublime words on the street. He could 
not have spoken to eleven men, making a hasty de- 
parture from the city, without speaking in a compar- 
atively loud tone ; and such a tone would have been 
inconsistent with the thoughts expressed, and would 
also have exposed him and his disciples to danger 
from their foes. When both the discourse and the 
prayer were ended we can well believe that then they 



252 



DIVTNE BALUSTRADES. 



chanted the appropriate psalm and went forth into 
the Garden in solemn silence. 

This is rightly called an intercessory prayer, and 
yet the term in this connection must have a special 
meaning. This is not the prayer of an inferior to a 
superior ; it is rather the expression of the will of one 
who is conscious of equality with him to whom the 
expression is made. It gives us an illustration of 
the prayer of our great High Priest now before the 
throne. All commentators, ancient and modern, have 
spoken of the fact that the words of this prayer flow 
on in equal simplicity and sublimity. The words 
themselves are so plain that the simplest minds may 
understand them ; and yet they are so deep that no 
finite mind can sound all their meaning. Bengel 
says : " This chapter is the most easy in respect to 
its language and the most profound in respect to its 
sentiments." "When John Knox came to die, he 
asked for the reading of this precious chapter. We 
are told that the devout Spener had it read to him 
three times when he was on his death-bed. Luther, 
Tholuck, Olshausen, Stier, Melanchthon and others 
speak of the profound impression which this high- 
priestly prayer made upon their minds and hearts. 
They confess their inability to scale its lofty heights, 
or to sound its profound depths. 

The prayer has been variously divided. We may 
say that it consists of three main parts. In the first 



INTERCESSORY PRAYER. 253 

five verses we have the prayer for the glorification of 
the Son; in verses six to nineteen, intercession for 
his own, whom he leaves in the world, and begin- 
ning with the 20th verse and going to the end of 
the chapter we have a petition with largest range of 
meaning for the whole Church of God in all times. 
We may express the thought more briefly by saying 
that in the first division we have Christ's prayer for 
himself primarily; in the second for the apostles 
specifically, and in the third for believers generally. 
In studying the text it seemed fitting to say this 
much about the relation of the chapter to the discourse 
which preceded it, and on the prayer as a whole. 

1. Let us notice, in the first place, the Petitioner. 
Here our Lord appears with kingly authority blend- 
ing with priestly intercession. The words " I will " 
do not so much express increased earnestness as they 
suggest the Petitioner's essential and conscious equal- 
ity with the Father. Who is this sublime Peti- 
tioner? Is he a man? Did man ever so address 
God? Did man ever venture to use language of such 
authority in his approaches to the Deity? This 
prayer is founded on the conscious right of the Peti- 
tioner to present this claim. He recognizes his 
relationship to the Eternal, his equality with Deity. 

It is not so much a petition asking for a favor as 
it is a declaration of a purpose. He, as a king, ex- 
presses the purpose that those who are his should 



254 



DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 



share with him in his glory. If this be the language 
of a mere man he must be a deeply sinful, a hope- 
lessly presumptuous, a sadly blasphemous man. No 
Old Testament saint ever so addressed God; Abra- 
ham did not so presume in the divine presence ; in 
that presence he spoke of himself as dust and ashes. 
David did not so presume. Here is a voice conscious 
of authority not possessed by patriarch or prophet, 
not by psalmist or apostle. This utterance illustrates 
the majesty of a sovereign rather than the humil- 
ity of a subject. These are truly wonderful words. 
Dare angel or archangel so pray? They prostrate 
themselves before God and cry, " Holy, Holy, Holy, 
Lord God of Hosts." This petition clearly implies 
that Christ is equal to God, that he is God. At the 
same time the prayer reveals his true humanity. 
Here the divine and human graciously and wonder- 
fully blend ; but no skill of man can separate them 
so as to describe what belongs to the human and 
what to the divine. This Petitioner is the divine 
Lord, holding sublime and ineffable communion with 
his Father. We cannot but feel that here we are 
standing on holy ground ; that here we are in the 
inner sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, of gospel history 
and of divine revelation. We rightly say that the 
will of the Son and the will of the Father are one ; 
that there is no collision, no contradiction, no con- 
trast. The prayer of the Son, therefore, is the echo of 



INTERCESSORY PRAYER. 255 

the desire of the Father; the Son's matchless words 
voiced the Father's eternal love and purpose. Christ 
is the Word. In him the Father's thought of love 
finds voice. If we know the Son we know the Father. 

2. In studying this prayer we have, in the next 
place, its subjects, " they also whom thou hast given 
me." The objects of the Father's love were given 
to Christ, and are now the subjects of his petition. 
The reference is not to the apostles alone, but to be- 
lievers in all times and places. Believers in Christ 
are given to him as the Father's most precious gift; 
and their love to Christ as his most resplendent jewel. 
There is unspeakable sweetness to every Christian 
heart in this divine relationship. All who are to be 
saved are given to Christ in the eternal purpose of 
God. No one but God knows who these are, but it 
is certain that they will be a vast number. The 
glowing prophecy of Isaiah teaches us that the Lord 
shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satis- 
fied. The description of heaven given in the Book 
of Revelation shows that the number of the redeemed 
will be unspeakably great. It will also be of all na- 
tions, kindreds, tongues, and people. Perhaps the 
number of the lost will be to the saved in some such 
proportion as the number now confined in prisons is 
to those at liberty in all the walks of life. 

Wo question can be more important than this one, 
" Have we been given to Christ?" Are we clothed 



256 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

in his righteousness, washed in his blood, trans- 
formed into his likeness? How can any man know 
that he has been given thus to Christ? "We cannot 
look into God's secret book; no angel can descend 
from heaven to make to us announcement regarding 
this matter. But still a man may know whether or 
not he is elected to be saved. The answer to the 
preplexing question is not to be found by inquisitive 
looking into God's secret counsels; it is not to be 
found in the indulgence of wicked presumption ; it 
is not to be found in the culpable indifference which 
says, If I am to be saved, I shall be ; if not, I cannot 
be. If a man will stop there, he certainly never will 
be saved. How then can we know that we have 
been given to Christ? The answer is simple and 
practical; every essential religious duty is simple 
and practical. As many are given to Christ by God 
as have given themselves to God through Christ ; as 
many are elected to be saved as have elected Christ 
as their Saviour. A man knows that he is elected 
of God when God is elected by him. We may learn 
the answer to this great question just as we learn 
whether or not we are Christians. Your answers to 
the questions which I now ask will be answers to 
the questions which I have just asked : " Have you 
believed on Jesus Christ? Have you accepted him as 
your only Saviour? Have you committed your soul 
to his keeping? Can you say now that you trust 



INTERCESSORY PRAYER. 257 

him and him alone as your Saviour in life, in 
death, and in eternity? Do you answer me humbly 
but earnestly in the affirmative? Then you are of 
the number spoken of in this prayer. The question 
with us is not one of election on God's part so much 
as it is one of candidacy on our part, for no man is 
ever elected except he be a candidate. Are you with 
all your soul a candidate? Then, as Godliveth, you 
are elected to eternal salvation. If we have com- 
mitted our souls to Christ it is as certain that God has 
committed us to him as if an angel from heaven 
should announce that fact by an audible voice at this 
moment. The committal of our souls to Christ is 
just the earthly side of God's eternal committal of 
our souls to Christ. If you choose God in Christ you 
have the best and only evidence possible that God has 
chosen you in Christ. If you are excluded from those 
for whom Christ prayed it is because you exclude 
yourself. If you are not with Christ now in love and 
faith you cannot be with Christ at last in his glory. 
Oh, give yourself to-day to the Lord Jesus, and you 
shall have the blessed evidence that you have been 
given to him by God as his most precious gift. Com- 
mit yourself to his keeping now, and you shall know 
that he will keep you as his choicest treasure until 
that day when he shall make up his jewels. 

3. Notice, in the third place, the petition itself — 

that they may " be with me where I am ; that they 

17 



258 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

may behold my glory, which thou hast given me." 
The first thought in this prayer is that Christ's own 
may be with him. These are wonderful words. 
They are high ; we cannot attain to them. They are 
deep; we cannot fathom them. There is here an 
outpouring of Christ's eternal love. The thought 
cannot be comprehended, far less expressed. This 
great honor is the result of his great love. It would 
be false humility which would lead us to refuse what 
that love bestows. True humility is seen in doing, 
being, and having what his grace gives. This 
prayer of Christ is very precious ; he would have us 
where he is. Christ's presence is heaven. Any- 
where with Jesus is heaven ; nowhere without him 
can his disciples have heaven. Here our Lord con- 
ceives of himself as already having finished his life, 
completed his sacrifice, and returned to his Father. 
He, therefore, presents this claim for the eternal 
companionship of his disciples. They, like him, are 
to pass from earthly toil to heavenly glory. His 
thoughts sweep past the cross and the tomb to the 
crown and the throne. This part of the petition is 
in harmony with the sentiment expressed in the 
second and third verses of the fourteenth chapter, 
where he speaks of his Father's house and the place 
he was going to prepare. We behold here the match- 
less mystery of eternal and ineffable love. Christ 
longs for our presence ; our companionship is sweet 



INTERCESSORY PRAYER. 259 

to him. It would seem as if heaven would be in- 
complete to him without the presence of his redeemed. 
This is marvellous condescension on his part ; this is 
indescribable exaltation for us. Such condescending 
love is like Christ. We are to be with him, and that 
not at his feet, but on his throne. As he overcame 
and is enthroned, so we are to overcome and be en- 
throned by his side. Further he could not go. Ad- 
ditional exaltation is impossible. 

We learn also that we are to behold his glory. 
While he was upon earth that glory was obscured ; 
to become man he veiled its splendor. Its brightness 
would dazzle and blind our human eyes. During his 
earthly life the hidden glory once burst through the 
veil of flesh, and the disciples were overwhelmed with 
its splendor. Now we have eyes to see only through 
a glass darkly ; now we have minds able to know 
only in part ; but the life to come shall give us the 
beatific vision of our Lord. We shall then see the 
King in his beauty. Many passages of Scripture 
fully corroborate these statements. The word here 
translated "behold" implies the open sight of his 
glory ; and it suggests our transformation into his 
perfect image. He so loved his people that he came 
to die for them ; he so loves them still that he desires 
them to reign with him forever. He is the head; 
they are the members of his body. Only when they 
are together will the glory of both be complete. The 



260 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

exalted occupation of the redeemed will be in behold- 
ing the glory of the Redeemer. Probably the glory 
here meant is that for which he prayed when he said, 
" Glorify thou me, with thine own self, with the glory 
which I had with thee before the world was." 
Earlier in his prayer we see his longing to be at the 
Father's side; now we see his longing to have his 
saints at his side. We are to be like Christ, because 
we shall see him as he is ; and it is also true that we 
shall see him as he is because we shall be like him. 
These two truths cannot be separated. This glory 
would then include the whole sweep of his eternal 
perfections and character. Moses prayed, "Show 
me thy glory," and God made all his goodness pass 
before him. There is material in this part of my 
text for a volume. We may say with Dr. Cumming, 
that we shall behold his creative glory, his provi- 
dential glory, and, most of all, his redemptive glory. 
This latter is the grandest thought of heaven. To 
see this glory the angels had strong desire. We al- 
ready know something of its mystery and majesty ; 
already some drops of the divine love have come into 
our hearts ; but in heaven we shall bathe in an ocean 
of love. Then we shall know the preciousness of 
that blood which hath cleansed us ; then we shall 
know the excellence of that righteousness whose robe 
we wear; then we shall know something of the 
breadth, height, and depth of that love which passeth 



INTERCESSORY PRAYER. 2G1 

all knowledge. Blessed knowledge ! Glorious day ! 
Beatific vision ! May the prayer of Christ be an- 
swered in the experience of us all. 

4. We notice, in the last place, the ground or argu- 
ment for this petition — " for thou lovedst me before 
the foundation of the world." This, at first sight, 
seems to be strange language. I confess that in study- 
ing this passage I did not at once see its relation to 
the previous parts of the text; but when I did its 
meaning was to me unspeakably glorious. We see 
here that the Father's love is the reason for giving 
the Son such wonderful glory as that already de- 
scribed. Had the words been, " for thou lovedst them 
before the foundation of the world" the meaning 
would seem more apparent. That also is true, for 
God did so love men. But to understand this great 
thought we must go deeper into the mystery and 
beauty of Christ's rhetoric. The ground of our hope 
is not merely God's love to us, but God's love to 
Christ. The glory promised is not due to any ar- 
bitrary allotment or capricious arrangement. Christ 
and his people are one ; he is in them and they in 
him, but we advance a step ; not only are we Christ's 
but Christ is God's. God sees his people in his only- 
begotten and well-beloved Son. God's love to Christ 
antedates the creation of all human beings. It was 
a love which existed from eternity between the per- 
sons of the blessed Godhead. When we are in Christ 



I 



262 DIVINE BALUSTRADES. 

by faith we share in the Father's love for the divine 
Son. "When Christ's work is completed, he will pre- 
sent us as a glorious people without spot or wrinkle 
or any such thing. Luther said of this text, " We 
should make this sentence our pillow, and a bed of 
down for our souls, and with a glad heart repair to it 
when the happy hour draws nigh." My highest 
wish for you, my dear hearers, and for myself, is 
expressed by the apostle Paul when he said of him- 
self : " And be found in him, not having mine own 
righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is 
through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which 
is of God by faith." If you have given your hearts 
unto Christ then God has given you unto Christ; 
then you are prayed for in this text ; then you shall 
be with him where he is ; then you shall behold his 
glory, and then you may go on developing in knowl- 
edge and character, gazing upon this beatific vision, 
and so finish this sermon in heaven. 



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